Social Impact & Sustainability

At Cataphract we believe that good social value can impact everyone, from the individual level to the wider community. As such, our family-owned business is committed to doing its part in driving positive changes wherever possible.

We have developed a core social value strategy that guides everything we do. The fundamental tenets of which are:

Support

We believe in the good works undertaken by Corporate Social Responsibility Programmes and other such charitable organisations. To support this, we provide heavily discounted services to those requiring DBS checks for their activities.

Respect

We value the social impact of local charities/groups/sports teams and respect the value those communities place on them. As such, Cataphract encourages our employees to be active within their local communities and provide for paid ‘giving back’ days. This has included, for example, working with key charities to provide volunteer mentors and supporting one of our colleagues’ work with Daisy First Aid (specialising in teaching CPD accredited paediatric first aid).

Kindness

Cataphract understands that not all social value needs to be big, to be impactful. We encourage all our employees to be mindful of the needs of those around them and to commit, wherever possible, random acts of kindness. It is our firm belief that the ripple effect will allow these positive impacts to radiate out into the community and support a more thoughtful and connected community. For example, one of our employees drives a disabled woman in her village to their place of work each day. To support this, we have provided extra flexibility in her working arrangements.

Belief

There are many people in society that, we feel, are undervalued. Cataphract has been built, from its very foundation, to believe in these people. This is why we have committed to actively employing those who are overlooked by many traditional corporate bodies. For example:

• We have employed multiple retired people, believing in the value of their experience, and provided them with flexible working arrangements to suit their specific needs.
• Our employment practices are developed to actively seek mothers wanting to re-join the workforce. Our highly flexible arrangements allow them to work around the needs of their family (which had previously been a barrier to traditional employment) leading to a 100% retention rate to date.
• We work with local colleges to provide internships to young people under applicable government schemes. For example, our latest hire is a 17-year-old undertaking a Programme Business Administrator internship.

Nature

We recognise how we all have a responsibility to protecting the earth. This is why Cataphract works to ensure our impacts on the environment are as minimal as possible. To this end, we have:

• Undergone a programme to move to a near-paperless system
• Transitioned 70% of our team to home working, to minimise the carbon footprint of their activities
• Minimised travel to clients by successfully employing a cloud first approach through Microsoft Teams communication, wherever practical
• Assigned Ecosia as our default search engine across all business machines (Ecosia.org is a search engine that uses 100% of their profits to plants trees) so that each search works towards improving Nature.

This social value strategy sits alongside our other policies covering Code of Conduct and Ethics; Anti-Bribery and Corruption; Environmental; Equality and Diversity; Health and Safety; Wellbeing; and Quality. Together, they create a firm foundation for doing business ethically and responsibly, operating in accordance with the law, our clients’ expectations, our values, and own moral standards.

Cataphract commits to collaborating with our clients to identify where we can provide social value for local communities.