Our ESG – inspiring, empowering, leading
SCG Environment
SCG Social (CSR)
SCG Governance
Our ESG Mission
By learning from our key audience communities, we aim to enact meaningful ESG initiatives. This is what makes ‘Our ESG’ a truly organic, employee-led Environmental, Social and Governance initiative, both at a local and a national level.
Our footprint is exactly where our employees’ feet go, and that is where we aim to leave a positive impact by empowering them to inspire and lead the way forwards.
The three layers: People, Environment, Reach
1. Engage with our staff to learn about what really matters to them and the communities they are connected to. We will be working towards reducing the gap between the life purpose and the working roles of our employees.
2. We believe in creating an environment for success that is underpinned by sustainable and ecological practices.
3. Reach out to our supplier chain to ensure that we are playing our part in increasing ethical accountability across our industry.
All of our activities should have an awareness of the impact that we wish to leave behind us.
The seven main streams
OURS is SCG’s ESG programme, fielded by our employees. Each stream has its own advocate within the business and is further sponsored by a member of the board. Inspiring, empowering, leading.
Environment awareness
SCG is taking meaningful action to reduce our environmental impact, working towards an aligned target date for net zero, with a Carbon Reduction Plan in place for each of the following business units: SCG Connected, SCG Together, SCG Corporate, SCG Wales, SCG Midlands, SCG South West and X-on.
We also have ISO 14001 environmental management system certification for SCG Connected, SCG Corporate and SCG South West, and a Sustainability Policy in place, aligning with UN and UK sustainability goals.
Career skills & leadership team
A new mentoring programme is coming to SCG- introducing ‘Project Echelon’.
Launched in 2024 as a pilot programme, it is initially aimed at those entering into management roles, or who are relatively new to managing teams within SCG. So far, it has already taken thirteen mentees into mentoring activity with seven mentors.
We will be monitoring the programme’s progress and taking pilot feedback, before it is then rolled out on a broader scale.
We are also trialling a work experience and apprenticeship scheme with X-on, focusing on engaging with local colleges and universities. The aim is to discover candidates who are a good fit for the Group, whilst creating an apprenticeship/work experience process that can be rolled out across other SCG offices.
Employee engagement
We are currently furthering our employee engagement strategy across the Group through three main initiatives.
Our Employee onboarding process includes an induction day, where every single new starter in the UK is invited to our head office. This day includes an office tour aligned with our customer journey, ISO training, the chance to network with other new starters and existing employees, plus 7 Habits of Highly Effective People training.
Our HR community is available to both managers and employees, encouraging everyone to engage directly with HR to foster a proactive and pre-emptive approach. Through this community we also offer management skills training. This is an 8-module course run over 4 days onsite at head office; approximately 1 day per month commitment is required.
Following a trial in our SCG South West office, we’ve now launched Shine, our rewards and recognition scheme which offers centralised access to employee benefits, discounts and schemes such as cycling to work.
Mental health & wellbeing
Through multiple initiatives, we aim to achieve our goal of creating an environment for employees to be well in mind and body at work.
Our initial step was the creation of our SCG Mental Health Community. This is a network of volunteer representatives across the Group, who provide support to both our employees and each other. Each is trained as a mental health first aider, which as of July 2024 enables us to hit our target of having two mental health first aiders at every business unit.
Our Employee Assistance Programme ensures that all staff have access to professional help whenever they need it. Using an app, website or a telephone helpline, employees can speak directly to a trained mental health counsellor for support in all aspects of mental health.
Having signed the Mind Mental Health at Work Commitment in 2023, we gained two major outcomes. Firstly, it enabled us to publicly declare our values and on-going commitment to achieve better mental health outcomes for those in work. Secondly, it gave us access to Mind’s invaluable framework, assisting us in the creation of the strategy to support this approach.
We work to continually raise awareness of mental health and remove its stigma. The OURS LinkedIn page is updated with content discussing mental health issues and initiatives across the year, available to staff, customers and followers. We also produce an ESG newsletter every six months circulated to all staff which further highlight this content.
SCG’s CSR
Our CSR approach lies where the S in ESG and CSR overlap. It represents SCG’s commitment to encourage the people within it to consider their impact on the world around them and increase community engagement. This initiative takes the form of activities such as volunteering, supporting charities, being mindful of environmental footprint, and encouraging good citizenship.
A major catalyst for our social framework is Shine, our pioneering recognition and collaboration platform. Embodying our four main values of People, Passion, Integrity and Empowerment, Shine not only brings our employees closer together through impactful peer-to-peer recognition, but it brings them closer to communities and to shared core altruistic passions. Sparking conversation, education and collaboration, this community hub empowers our people to harness the power of the Group to achieve more of what they want to.
As we enter our 60th year of operation, our 60 @ 60 project aims to match our business acumen with our commitment to charitable causes. Throughout 2025, we have set ourselves a goal of supporting 60 charity projects, all of which are entirely employee-nominated and driven. Shine enables us to elevate the success of these events and then highlight these accomplishments to the Group to increase momentum further.
