Admind has developed and published its first ESG report. Piotr Dáo, Community Manager, inventor, and main coordinator of the project, talks about the multi-stage process of creating the report, the challenges, and the goals for the future.
STAGE 1: MOTIVATION
At the outset, I would like to emphasise that Admind is a B Corp agency , and that the core of our business purpose is not only economic profit, but above all, the care of all our stakeholders. And I don’t just mean our clients, but also the planet, the environment, communities and our entire workforce. Even though it is not mandatory for our organisation, I thought it would be worthwhile to publish such a report because we do cool things and we can brag about them to inspire others.
STEP 2: RESEARCH
I started by looking at other ESG reports . I became curious about what other companies in different sectors were doing in this area. This prompted me to do more. We already monitor many of our activities. Also, in the context of the upcoming B Corp recertification. I thought we had a good basis for developing our report. I looked at what elements we should include in the report and what we should leave out. Of course, we were not bound by any top-down guidelines as we did the whole process on a voluntary basis, but many companies are obliged to report according to a strict framework.
STEP 3 DATA COLLECTION
This was a team effort from the beginning. I am extremely grateful to my colleagues Dagmara Stasica and Fahira Hidayah for their very painstaking and diligent work, which consisted of reviewing all invoices and tallying how many kilowatts of electricity we used, how much fuel we purchased for our car fleet, how much paper we used, etc. We also analyzed our business travels, which are not uncommon in an organization that works with international clients. As part of our previous social impact activities, we had already monitored a lot of data, such as: water consumption, so it was much easier to gather some data.
STEP 4 DATA ANALYSIS
We asked another Polish B Corp organization, TerGo, which specialises in calculating carbon footprints, to help us analyse our data as transparently and professionally as possible. We are grateful to them for guiding us through the process, but also for offering us very favourable financial terms. This is how the environmental part of the report came about.
We developed the social part ourselves. Admind is very active in this area. We carry out many activities that have a significant social impact. For example, we have a long-standing relationship with Filmon Festival , um festival de cinema para pessoas com deficiência, que foi recentemente reconhecido no prestigioso relatório de negócios responsável. Também temos várias iniciativas internas interessantes. Por exemplo, meses temáticos em que nos concentramos em diferentes áreas próximas a nossos funcionários: mês do orgulho, mês de conscientização sobre saúde mental ou no mês plástico. Todos os anos, maio é o nosso mês de bicicleta, durante o qual promovemos o ciclismo para o trabalho, organizamos o treinamento de ciclo pela primeira vez e as inspeções de bicicletas. Também apresentamos nossa política anti-bullying. Um de nossos valores fundamentais é a bondade, o que significa cuidar de nossos funcionários, planeta e comunidades, por isso dedicamos muito espaço a mostrar o caminho completo para relatar possíveis má conduta. Queríamos compartilhar com outras pessoas como lidamos com isso. Mas comecei com um índice. Tentamos descrever tudo com precisão, de uma maneira transparente, mas ao mesmo tempo interessante para o público em potencial. Fui apoiado nesse processo pelo redator Morgan Nicholas-Karpiel. O mais importante para nós foi a transparência e a precisão na descrição dos vários fenômenos. Toda a experiência também foi supervisionada por Mateusz Zabierowski, co-fundador e CEO da Admind.
In the governance section, we described and presented the demographics of our organisational structure with charts, such as which generations work for us, in which locations, in which mode of work – desk-based in one of the offices or fully remote. We also presented our anti-bullying policy. One of our core values is kindness, which means caring for our employees, the planet and communities, so we devoted a lot of space to showing the full path for reporting potential misconduct. We wanted to share with others how we deal with it.
STEP 5 BUILDING THE STRUCTURE OF THE REPORT
The whole process took about 4 months. But I started with a table of contents. We tried to describe everything accurately, in a way that was transparent but at the same time interesting to potential audiences. I was supported in this process by copywriter Morgan Nicholas-Karpiel. The most important thing for us was transparency and precision in describing the various phenomena. The whole experience was also overseen by Mateusz Zabierowski, co-founder and CEO of Admind.
estágio 6 Design gráfico
O próximo estágio foi o design gráfico do documento. A tarefa principal aqui caiu para o Wiktor Skawski, para quem eu era provavelmente o cliente mais difícil até agora. Também envolvidos no processo estavam Marta Szmyd - diretora criativa, Maciej Ochęcki - Líder de Design, Anna Niklewicz - pesquisadora e designer sênior da UX. A camada visual foi baseada em nossa marca visual. Utilizamos cores, fontes e elementos visuais consistentes com o visual chave do Admind. Era muito importante para nós que alcançamos completos Consistência da marca Com a nossa marca. Mas é isso que nós, como agência, conhecemos melhor. Ele encontrou seu lugar em nosso site, onde está disponível para todos. Também convidamos nosso público de mídia social, nossos destinatários de boletins, nossos clientes e nossos parceiros, mas, acima de tudo, nossos funcionários, para lê -lo - porque é seu compromisso e atitude que permitem que o Admind cresça de acordo com nossos valores centrais, mas também em uma direção verdadeiramente verde. Por curiosidade, comparei nossa pontuação atual nesta área com outras empresas de tamanho semelhante ou dentro de nosso setor. Nossa pegada de carbono não é ruim, mas vemos muitas áreas em que estamos prontos para fazer mudanças radicais para melhor. Queremos minimizar a frequência de viagens de negócios e, sempre que possível, substituir as viagens aéreas por trilho. Cracóvia está bem conectada. Encontraremos facilmente bons vínculos de trem para Berlim, Amsterdã ou Zurique. Também continuaremos incentivando os funcionários a usar o transporte público ou, por exemplo, bicicletas. Já demos os primeiros passos com nossa própria frota de carros, substituindo um carro por um híbrido. Para a Cúpula B Corp deste ano, o co-fundador e CEO Mateusz Zabierowski está levando o trem de Varsóvia a Amsterdã. Pode haver uma decisão de desistir de parte do nosso espaço de escritório, a fim de reduzir nossa pegada de carbono nessa área também. Pelo contrário, será outro motivo para se orgulhar e fortalecer nossos valores compartilhados. Já estamos monitorando mais dados continuamente e os registrando cuidadosamente nas planilhas relevantes. Também estamos coletando dados sobre o impacto qualitativo de nossas atividades sociais. Existem várias iniciativas que eu sei que esqueci de mencionar neste relatório. Certamente não repetiremos esse erro no próximo ano. As atividades que estamos realizando agora tornarão mais fácil e rápido trabalhar na próxima edição do relatório. Estamos tentando otimizar esses processos. Espero que os próximos relatórios que publicamos demonstrem isso. Empresa
STAGE 7 PUBLICATION
We have successfully completed and published the document as planned. It has found its place on our website, where it is available to everyone. We have also invited our social media audiences, our newsletter recipients, our customers and our partners, but most of all our employees, to read it – because it is their commitment and attitude that allows Admind to grow in line with our core values, but also in a truly green direction.
STAGE 8 CONCLUSIONS
While working on the report, we immediately started to look at processes that would reduce our carbon footprint in the future. Out of curiosity, I compared our current score in this area with other companies of similar size or within our sector. Our carbon footprint is not bad, but we see many areas where we are ready to make radical changes for the better.
We intend to meet the challenge of reducing our footprint by 15% in the near future. We want to minimise the frequency of business trips and, where possible, replace air travel with rail. Krakow is well connected. We will easily find good train links to Berlin, Amsterdam or Zurich. We will also continue to encourage employees to use public transport or, for example, bicycles. We have already taken the first steps with our own car fleet, replacing one car with a hybrid. For this year’s B Corp Summit, co-founder and CEO Mateusz Zabierowski is taking the train from Warsaw to Amsterdam.
We will also be looking closely at our office premises to see if they are being used efficiently. There may be a decision to give up some of our office space in order to reduce our carbon footprint in this area as well.
Our employees and associates are committed and proactive in caring for the environment, as can be seen in our day-to-day operations, so I am sure that the continuous process of change we have decided to embark upon will not be a problem for them. On the contrary, it will be another reason to be proud and to strengthen our shared values.
STAGE 9 WHAT’S NEXT?
We immediately started preparing for the next edition of the report. We are already monitoring more data on an ongoing basis and carefully recording it in the relevant spreadsheets. We are also collecting data on the qualitative impact of our social activities. There are several initiatives which I know I have forgotten to mention in this report. We will certainly not repeat this mistake next year. The activities we are undertaking now will make it easier and quicker to work on the next edition of the report. We are trying to optimise these processes.
Personally, I’m keen to see Admind continue to change for the better, becoming a more responsible and sustainable business with every step we take. I hope that the next reports we publish will demonstrate this.
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