Sustainable Development Goals.
At Expert Thinking we are passionate about doing our part to help tackle climate change, equality and promote good health. We’re doing this with the help of Support the Goals, a powerful initiative to raise awareness of the UN Global Goals in the business community.
Creating a better future.
In 2015, 193 world leaders agreed to 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. The target: creating a better planet over the next 15 years in areas of critical importance.
As part of our commitment to making a real difference, our initial focus is on supporting three UN Global Goals that are aligned with our business ethos and where we feel we can make the biggest real-world impact.
Our objectives involve:
- Promoting good health and well-being
- Advancing gender equality
- Advocating for climate action
Good health & well-being.
Purpose
Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.
Measurable targets
Continue to achieve 100% accessibility to mental health support for all employees and associates at Expert Thinking in 2024 and sustain this level of access in the following years.
Taking action
We recognise that staff will sometimes deal with mental health issues, and we believe there should be no stigma attached to mental health. It is our commitment that all staff has access to free, confidential counselling services. These services are provided by Health Assured and can take the form of a telephone consultation, online chat, or email.
We understand that good health and well-being consists of multiple factors, and we focus on empowering and supporting our people across five areas: emotional, physical, social, career, and financial well-being. Expert Thinking’s people are at the heart of everything we do and therefore we have the following in place to ensure the best well-being of our team:
- Mental Health First Aider training to raise awareness and provide support to our full team.
- Health & Safety Policy shared with all employees and associates.
- Vitality Health Insurance
- Regular Social Events
Performance data
We have a trained network of peer-to-peer counsellors – our Mental Health First Aider team – who are spread across departments and able to offer a confidential, friendly chat if required. We continue to provide Vitality Health Insurance and have renewed this following the impacts to the team.
Our team successfully completed the Total Warrior in 2023 to support and challenge physical health.
Gender equality.
Purpose
Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. Gender in-equity in the workplace can be inherent in recruitment processes, particularly in male-dominated industries. Standardised interviews and skills-based assessments can help address the issue.
Measurable targets
During 2024, our measurable target is to actively participate in or host quarterly events dedicated to empowering women and advancing our efforts for gender equality within our workplace.
Taking action
We have reviewed our recruitment process, using skills-based assessments and structured interviews to reduce the risk of bias. We have also removed information regarding gender when screening candidates. Our equality, diversity and inclusion policy is in place and shared with all members of the organisation.
All eligible staff undertake compliance training covering Code of Ethics, Inclusion and Diversity, Anti-Bribery and Corruption, Data Privacy and Data Protection and Information Security. To further our positive impact, our team will attend networking events and enterprise days to empower women to forge careers in the technology industry.
Performance data
In 2022 we doubled our female workforce. In 2023 we introduced two more colleagues to our female workforce. One of our fantastic engineers Emma Hume progressed into a technical position. A full review of our pay and policies was completed in 2023 to ensure equality throughout the company. We continue to work towards our target of events to empower Women.
Climate action.
Purpose
Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.
Measurable targets
In 2022, we made a commitment to implementing and promoting sustainable practices among our suppliers and partners. This commitment has persisted in 2023 and will continue in 2024 as part of our ongoing sustainability efforts.
To ensure measurable progress, we have conducted a comprehensive review of our colleagues’ carbon footprints and have undertaken measures to offset these emissions in both their personal and professional lives. With environmental sustainability in mind, we are dedicated to adopting a ‘remote-first’ business model, reserving travel for essential circumstances.
Our dedication to reducing our environmental impact, both on a personal and corporate level, remains unwavering.
According to the research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences employees who worked remotely full time reduced their emissions by 54%, compared with workers in an office, the study found. Hybrid workers did not reduce their emissions so dramatically, one day of remote work a week reduced emissions by just 2% because energy savings from not being in the office were offset by factors such as an increase in non-commuting travel when working from home. Working remotely two or four days a week reduced an individual’s emissions by up to 29% compared with on-site workers.
Taking action
As experts in technology, we want to promote sustainable IT to help organisations reduce their emissions and carbon footprint. This will enable us to take customers beyond climate education and into climate action.
We use AWS and Azure for our cloud infrastructure, supporting a carbon neutral company, and actively encourage our customers to use sustainable practices during the transformational and implementation process.
Through optimising the use of public cloud, we move from traditional compute to cloud compute in order to significantly reduce the amount of power and heat used within various industries.
Technologies such as Cloud Native Platforms can increase compute efficiency by a factor of five – a particular area of specialisation for Expert Thinking. Our implementation of these technologies, alongside ephemeral compute can have an outsized effect on emissions for our customers.
As a company that assists and drives compute migration away from on-premise data centres and computer equipment rooms to hyperscale cloud platforms we deliver tangible reductions in the CO2 Equivalent carbon intensity. According to Climatiq carbon intensity is reduced by a factor of 5 when moving from old, dirty data centres to modern cloud platforms. Our engineering practices focus on optimising compute through the use of leading-edge design to maximise every percent of compute to minimise waste and maximise efficiency.
We have helped and continue to support behaviours that reduce the overall impact on the planet in terms not just of carbon intensity but, through our relationship with Microsoft focus on the reduction in e-waste, water usage per unit of compute and deforestation. Indeed, by 2025, Azure data centres will be using renewable energy 100% and water positive by 2030.
To give one example we have helped one of the UK’s leading automotive retail and aftersales service companies who have taken up cloud platforms and moved away from DCs.
Alongside the above, we are nearing the completion of a white paper that will be shared with our customers on cloud engineering for efficiency – driving the message home on avoiding the need for wasted compute, improving efficiency throughout the lifecycle.
We partner with Delphix, a technology company that consolidates sprawling data footprints by virtualizing data — for a 10:1 savings in cost, power, cooling and related carbon impact, and thus reduces carbon impact by 10x for enterprise applications, so environmental sustainability is core to our value as a company and our people.
Climate change is a preventable crisis – we are focused on minimising damage to the environment.
Performance data
In 2023 we performed 100% remotely and will continue this trend in 2024.
