CTS & B Corp
CTS are proud to be a B Corp certified organisation!
If you’re wondering what it means to be B Corp (Benefit Corporation) certified then, in short, it is an in-depth audit which measures a company’s entire social and environmental impact.
But in reality, there is a lot more to it than that! Achieving a B Corp status demonstrates a business has achieved (and is committed to maintaining) high standards on factors which include, but aren’t limited to: employee benefits, charitable giving and responsible supply chain practices. These benchmarks are set by an independent Standards Advisory Council and companies need to be recertified every 3 years in order to maintain their B Corp status.
In total, the journey for us to receive our certification took 2 years, loads of hard work and making some impactful changes internally such as…
- The implementation of our Charity, DEI and Environmental boards
- The creation of 'learning days' to allow our people more time to commit towards their personal development
So why did CTS decide to become B Corp certified?
During our company “Kick off” last month (May, 2023) our Managing Director, Chris Bunch, expressed that our shared vision at CTS was to “build a business that we are proud of” and being B Corp certified is a big part of that.
Our Head of People and Internal Technology, Charlotte Batters, sums it up nicely when she described our journey to become B Corp certified as “a long term commitment to equality, support and sustainability throughout the business.”
Ultimately, B Corporations are businesses who want to be a force for good.
Read more about our story to becoming B Corp certified
What does B Corp mean to CTS?
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In 2021 we established our DEI strategy, focusing on meaningful inclusivity rather than ticking tokenistic boxes and chasing statistics. We created an internal DEI Board and rolled out DEI Workshops which has stimulated conversation on important topics, and has helped to foster a culture of openness and inclusivity.
Our DEI Board has been pivotal in rolling out some really positive initiatives - such as establishing gender neutral parental policies and increasing the length of paternity leave.
We are also currently working on a programme to, over time, increase the diversity of not just CTS, but the tech industry as a whole. There is still a long way to go when it comes to diversifying the tech industry.
To make this happen, we currently offer a one day workshop called “Intro to GCP” to anyone that is interested in attending it, no prior experience required. It does exactly what it says on the tin, it is an introduction to Google Cloud, covering topics such as “what actually is the cloud?” and commonly used Google Cloud products. Once these aspiring engineers have completed our workshop they are added to an online community where they receive learning materials and ongoing support from our very own CTS Platform Engineering team.
We aspire to get these individuals to a point where they can successfully pass their Google Professional Cloud Architect certification and as a result they are able to start their career in tech at CTS, or even one of our competitors.
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Charitable giving has always been a huge part of the CTS culture, and our Charity team does a fantastic job at driving initiatives.
Every year, we support two charities. It is down to our people to nominate charities that they’re passionate about, then a company wide vote is held to decide which two charities we will support. We currently target raising £12,000 a year for charity, and whilst CTS currently match some of our people's donations, we aspire to get to a point where we can match every donation.
Volunteering is also something which is widely encouraged. In order to make that as easy as possible we offer uncapped time off to volunteer, allowing our people paid time off in order to support a cause they are really passionate about.
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Our environmental strategy is owned by our environmental board, who have put together some key goals so we can do our bit for the environment. Firstly, we have committed to achieving net zero by 2030, which is by no means an easy feat! In order to achieve this we are constantly collecting and analysing data and we have a carbon reduction plan in place which is continually being adapted. Part of achieving this goal is to help both our people and our customers understand their carbon footprint.
We are also committed to supporting our local businesses. To do this, we have created a new step in our procurement process which came into play in early 2023. This new step assesses a supplier on their environmental impact, treatment of their employees and distance from our offices. Our aim is to assess all new suppliers that we bring on board at CTS and eventually review all of our current suppliers as well.
