Social Impact with Mark Rogers
Following the latest Your View Matters survey, the first to include questions about our Social Enterprise status, it is obvious we haven’t done enough to explain why it is so important not just to the company but to you, your colleagues and broader society. In the following, I will answer some key questions you may have.
What is a Social Enterprise?
A Social Enterprise is a business that puts people and the planet over profits for shareholders – in the simplest of terms. To become a Social Enterprise, a company must show that its policies reflect its work to better society through their environmental activities – moving to renewables, electric vehicles and reducing their power usage, socialimpact – proving they have a commitment to diversity, equality and inclusion and a strong commitment to colleagues and the public, and Governance – proving that they manage their business ethically.
To that end, the profit that Corps makes is invested back into the business to ensure our long term sustainability and to support our colleagues. The remainder then is donated to military charities. Our principal charity partner is Combat Stress, more about them below.
What is ESG?
Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) strategies are commonplace in businesses, but at Corps, we strive to be the best. Our ESG strategy has been closely aligned with our customers, which means our success can bolster our customer’s success, and vice versa. With the nature of our work, we cannot positively affect our environmental impact as some companies, although moving to paperless reporting and introducing electric vehicles, form part of our strategy. Where we can make the best impact, by far, is with our social mission.
What is Corps’ social mission?
Now you know the basics, let’s discuss Corps’ Social Mission. Corps is considered the first-ever Social Enterprise, as when Corps of Commissionaires was formed in 1859, the company provided gainful employment to those who had served in the Crimean War.
Today, our modern mission has been adapted to provide broader support for veterans in need who have served our country. This includes providing employment, but now we have extended the support we offer veterans in the UK through our charity partnership with Combat Stress.
Who are Combat Stress?
Combat Stress is the UK’s leading charity for veterans’ mental health. For over a century, they have helped former servicemen and women with mental health problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety and depression.
In recent years they now provide specialist treatment and support for veterans from every service and conflict, focusing on those with complex mental health issues.
How do we support them?
Corps commitment to support Combat Stress sees us supporting the charity in different ways. Firstly, our commitment to our social mission means that the charity will receive a percentage of our yearly profits, with the rest of the money reinvested into the business to support our colleagues.
Secondly, through our contract value donations. Contract value donations are an optional commitment from new customers to pay an additional percentage of the value of the contract as a direct donation to the charity. This is a new initiative supported by our sales teams.
Finally, we split our fundraising activities across the company between Combat Stress and a range of other charities we support.
The money donated to Combat Stress will help to fund their helpline, one-on-one counselling sessions and support groups, and helping to reintegrate veterans into society and support them through targeted mental health services and the return to employment.
Combat Stress also provide us with a dedicated veterans portal, for colleagues who have served and who are possibly best helped and supported by the team of experts at Combat Stress. This is accessed via your CorpsConnect app, under well-being. If you are a veteran and can’t access this, please do speak with your manager and this will be updated.
Why does this matter to you?
If you have no direct relationship with a veteran, you may wonder why being a Social Enterprise is so essential to you. There is a perfect answer to this. Social Enterprises make up over £60billion of revenue from businesses per year in the UK. Each Social Enterprise will have its social mission, featuring a different under-represented segment of society. It may be the homeless, the LGBTIQA+ community, children in poverty, foodbanks, or supporting third-world countries in combatting water poverty and hunger. By being a Social Enterprise, we are in a family of businesses striving to make the world a better place for everyone.
We should hold our heads high, shout about this incredible accolade and wear our pin badges with pride in the knowledge that we are having a positive social impact on society every day.
Find out more about Social Enterprises at www.socialenterprise.org.uk