Introduction

Our mission is to help small business owners focus on what they love, surrounded by a supportive community of like minded people.

At Crunch, we don’t just talk about doing the right thing, we act on it. We’re committed to sustainability and hold ourselves accountable for hitting both our short-term and long-term Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) goals, so we can make a real difference together.

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Our Carbon Footprint

As a mainly remote company with no permanent office location, our carbon footprint is relatively low.  But we're not stopping there! We're committed to reducing our impact even further and making sure our business activities do no harm to the environment.

We’re exploring options to measure our baseline emissions footprint, which would serve as a record of greenhouse gases that have been produced in the past or prior to the implementation of any strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 

Our baseline emissions would be the reference point against which emissions reduction can be measured. 

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What We’re Doing to Reduce Our Impact

Even before we have full measurements in place, here are a few practical steps we’re already taking:

• Serviced office energy - As measured by our co-working space providers based in Brighton & Hove.
• Home working emissions - These are calculated from surveying our team on their frequency of office working and distance from home to the office and back.
• Business travel - Minimising travel related emissions from flights and cars, most of our team use public transport to travel to ‘in person’ meetings and most of our meetings are held on video call. 
• Waste reduction  - Reducing office and operational waste, and responsible disposal of electrical equipment.
• Product & Software as a Service (SaaS) impact -  Making our software as efficient as possible, and working with providers who run data centres responsibly, especially for powering AI infrastructure.
• IT & engineering infrastructure  - Selecting energy efficient laptops, monitors and other tech items from our suppliers to keep our footprint low.

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Our ESG Initiatives

Crunch is also committed to hitting our ESG goals through a mix of ongoing and new initiatives, including:

• Customer journeys - We regularly review how our customers experience Crunch, making sure everything is inclusive and accessible. Our team also receives ongoing training to support all customers, including vulnerable groups.
• Exploring shared identities or interests in our team  - Forming Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) in addition to our existing Crunch Voice group, to share experiences, connect with others and help us develop initiatives to support these groups within our team, whilst promoting inclusivity for all. This is overseen by one of our Non-Executive Directors who is giving us invaluable guidance on Governance.
• Sustainable office commuting - Reducing reliance on travel by car and encouraging team members local to the office to use public transport, walk or cycle to work.
• Remote working - Over 90% of our team work remotely most or all of the time, so we make sure they have reliable systems and support to stay healthy, happy and connected, both physically and mentally.
• Responsible recycling - As part of our shift to remote-first working, we’re donating office items we no longer need to our team, local schools and community groups. It’s a simple way to reduce waste and make sure good equipment stays in use.

• Raising awareness - Providing education or training to our team to promote the importance of our ESG responsibilities, including blogs and team newsletter features.
• Community engagement - Participation in ESG initiatives within local communities across the UK. All of our team can take one paid volunteering day per year, or a paid half day a year to donate blood, to address the well publicised shortage in blood stocks held by the NHS.
• Financial inclusion - Continuing our long standing commitment to the Real Living Wage for our team members, including our apprentices, and offering retailer money off savings to our team via use of the Boostworks platform.
• Knowledge sharing - Helping small business owners get to grips with knowledge based videos on insightful topics that directly impact them, via our website, YouTube and TikTok channels.
• Supporting academic excellence - Partnering with local further and higher education providers to share experiences and inspire future generations of working people through guest speaking and mentoring of students.
• Offering apprenticeship opportunities - Building a pipeline of future talent in software development, so we have our finger on the pulse with rapid technological advancement, and can engage with and support underrepresented groups on their apprenticeship progression journeys.

To drive progress, we’ve also established an internal ESG steering group, made up of passionate team members dedicated to achieving our ESG goals. 

From April 2026, the steering group will:

• Examine best practices in our sector and beyond on ESG activities to seek ideas.
• Report quarterly to our Board of Directors, with contributions from members of our management team and our wider team. 
• Share our progress with the team internally and externally on our social media channels and website.
• Share our customer commitments to ESG activities through the achievement of their business goals.
• Ensure that ESG responsibilities are added to everyone’s Job Descriptions in the Senior Leadership Team.

From the end of the 2026-27 financial year, in addition to the above actions, we will:

• Publish an annual ESG report internally on our intranet and externally on our website to share our progress with our team and wider community.

Crunch is committed to improving how we do things, being open about our ESG goals, and taking real and tangible action.

We welcome feedback from our customers, team and partners to help us keep moving in the right direction.

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