Sustainability

Our mission is to create better work experiences for people, wherever they work.

Our promise is to do this in a socially responsible, ethical and sustainable way that positively impacts our customers, employees and stakeholders, whilst minimising our impact on the planet.

ESG IMPACT REPORT FY23

From procurement and supply chain sustainability through to carbon and energy reduction, waste avoidance and circular design, our Impact Report details how we are delivering a series of practical actions that will make a measurable year-on-year difference to our sustainability performance.

Download now

ESG Impact Report FY23 front cover

We're at the forefront of our industry in working to minimise the impact that our clients' furniture requirements have on the environment.

We achieve this by providing a range of sustainably-focused services and products that help our clients to meet their sustainability goals while advancing our own ambitions to make a positive impact on the planet.

However, our journey to create a formal program to assess and improve the impacts that IE creates as a business has just started. At the beginning of 2022, we launched the next phase of our sustainability program: Advancing ESG@IE. 

Advancing ESG@IE

We've embarked on an ambitious journey to make a tangible and measurable difference year-on-year to our sustainability performance.

From procurement and supply chain sustainability, through carbon and energy reduction, waste avoidance and circular design, we’ve created an ESG (Environmental, Social And Governance) roadmap to deliver a series of practical actions across IE that will benefit our customers and help us meet our goals. We want sustainability to be integral to every part of our business and something that all our employees consider in their day-to-day actions. Our commitment and investment to our sustainability goals is clear and ongoing.

IE is owned by Steelcase, a global, leading organisation that is recognised by its peers and third-party organisations for its commitments to people, the planet and its communities. ​ You can find out more information about Steelcase's award-winning approach to ESG by reading its 2022 impact report or on the ESG section of its website. As a global furniture manufacturer, Steelcase's core operations have a different set of impacts to IE, so we have launched 'Advancing ESG@IE' to identify and improve our own individual impacts on the planet.

Within our AdvancingESG@IE initiative, we have produced ambitious long-term (3-5 years) goals along with short-term objectives (12+ months). You can read the full details of how we're achieving these goals and objectives in our ESG Impact Report FY23 find out more about our goals and objectives in each area in the sections below.

ENVIRONMENT

Healthy Planet - Learn more about our work to reduce our carbon emissions and help you meet your sustainability targets.

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SOCIAL

Healthy People - How we support our people, clients, stakeholders, and the wider community to thrive.

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GOVERNANCE & POLICIES

Healthy Culture - How we work within our regulations and policies to manage risks and run our company in a transparent and fair manner.

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Environment

Our Environmental Goals

We will:

  • Develop science-based and long-term net zero. carbon targets in line with the UK Government’s commitment to net zero by 2050
  • Be environmentally compliant with applicable laws and regulations.
  • Minimise waste to landfill
  • Promote circular product principles
  • Work with clients & partners to drive product circularity and sustainable
    procurement
Our FY23 Objectives

We will achieve our goals by:

  • Establishing our baseline carbon emissions for scope 1, 2 and 3
  • Creating a Waste Management Plan, complete with metrics for measuring
    year-on-year reductions
  • Targeting zero environmental non-compliance findings in our ISO and 3rd party environment audits
  • Growing our workplace services supporting sustainable sourcing and product circularity
  • Developing a Supplier Sustainability Programme
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Our efforts to improve our environmental performance considers how we utilise natural resources and the effect of our operations on the environment, both directly and indirectly across our suppliers.

Our carbon footprint

To align with the UK Government’s commitment to net zero by 2050, we conducted a baseline carbon and energy audit to understand our scope 1 and 2 emissions (Direct emissions from our operations and indirect emissions from purchased energy) and provide an estimate for scope 3 (all other emissions associated with our business that we do not own or control). We have identified where we can make the most meaningful change to reduce our carbon footprint and have already made progress against many of these actions.

“Our baseline figure for scope 1 and 2 emissions in FY22 was 115t CO2e - similar to approximately 21 economy class passengers on return flights between London and Auckland.”

Our responsibility to our clients

We are committed to helping our clients make sustainable choices around their office furniture assets and procurement by promoting circular product principles and low-carbon products.

We are also continuing to grow our workplace services to support this mission.

Our responsibility to our supply chain

We are also committed to working with our supply partners to drive product circularity and sustainable procurement. We have developed a Sustainability Procurement Policy and an IE Supplier code of conduct that all suppliers must adhere to, as well as an ongoing Supplier Sustainability Program to continuously review how our suppliers can improve their ESG performance.

The sustainable office ebook download

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SOCIAL

Our Social Goals
We will:
  • Develop a workforce that is highly engaged with our ESG journey and our community / social investment plan
  • Create a culture of inclusion - that embraces diversity & enables equality
  • Ensure a safe and healthy workplace
  • Promote continual learning and development
Our FY23 Objectives

We will achieve our goals by:

  • Implementing a formalised community engagement programme
  • Completing FY23 training and development plans for all IE employees
  • Developing an ESG engagement programme - with a series of events and 
    workshops to educate our employees on Advancing ESG@IE to promote its importance and encourage input
  • Having zero health and safety non-conformance findings in our ISO and other external audits & no reportable incidents
Community-programs

At IE, we are committed to supporting our people, clients, stakeholders and the wider community to thrive.

Community engagement

To continue our support for our local communities we have formalised our community engagement program. In 2022 we were involved in multiple fundraising events for cancer charities and have chosen to volunteer with The Trussell Trust, a charity supporting over 1,200 food banks across the UK.

“So far in FY23 we have raised a total of £10,512 for different cancer charities.”

Employee welfare

We have put several systems in place to support our employees to be happy and healthy at work and home. These include an Employee Assistance Programme, Retail Discount Schemes and Employee Forum to give our people a voice within the business.

Training and development

We are committed to delivering continual learning and development opportunities for our employees so they can grow and feel fulfilled at work. We also rolled out a 4-part ESG training programme to educate the team on the concepts of ESG and why the initiative is vital to the business.

“Every IE employee will has a FY23 personalised training & development plan.”

Health and safety

Adhering to Health and Safety legislation is an integral part of our business, and in FY23, we are targeting zero Health and Safety non-compliances through our ISO audit.

Diversity and inclusion

We have gathered data regarding diversity & inclusion at IE and will use this data to drive our ambition to ensure the company is representative of our community. We have also delivered diversity & inclusion training to staff.

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Governance & PolicIes

Our Governance Goals

We will:

  • Meet best practice in governance matters
  • Continue to be compliant with existing and new UK legislation
  • Deliver acceptable & sustainable ROI to our Shareholders
  • Achieve an external recognised international sustainability certification.

Our Fy23 Objectives

We will achieve our goals by:

  • Delivering a plan for annual training updates for:
        –    Anti-bribery & corruption
        –    Diversity & inclusion
        –    Modern slavery act
  • Developing a voluntary disclosure plan via our statutory accounts for FY2023
  • Delivering the FY23 Business Plan
  • Completing the B-Corp assessment to identify areas for focus

Governance structure

IE strives to maintain the highest ethical standards in our operations. We want to do not only what is right but what is best. The IE executive team and Board of Directors strive to continuously maintain our values as we cultivate and grow this culture throughout the organisation.

Governance at IE is based on the principle of bringing together empowered, distributed decision-making and empathic leadership. We believe curating this culture while simultaneously encouraging employees to find their voice drives a unique culture consistent with our core values of treating people with dignity and respect.

ESG governance

Our ESG commitment starts at the top with our statutory directors responsible for ESG matters. In 2022, we also hired a full-time Sustainability and Compliance Manager reporting to the COO to help progress the implementation of our ESG strategy.

Compliance

We are certified to ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001. We have set up an internal audit function led by our Sustainability and Compliance Manager to ensure we continue to conform to the ISO requirements. We have also improved several of our company policies to ensure we are at the forefront of our compliance obligations.

“Using our core business values to guide us, we are shaping a future that continues to protect the environment, fosters transformational social impact, and sustains a culture where all people feel empowered.”

External ESG assessment

One of our objectives was to undertake an external assessment of our ESG program to give us a basis and measurement for improvement. We are in the process of self-assessing with several different certifications to inform our plan going forward and ensure we are constantly evolving and improving.

Our Policies

Below we have included our policies and accreditations for our different management systems that demonstrate our commitment to the responsible governance of our business.

IE ESG Impact Report FY23

From procurement and supply chain sustainability through to carbon and energy reduction, waste avoidance and circular design, our Impact Report details how we are delivering a series of practical actions that will make a measurable year-on-year difference to our sustainability performance.

Download now

ESG Impact Report FY23 front cover

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