The joy of being audited

We work with some of the biggest brands in the Finance and Utilities sectors so it’s vital that our business is fully accredited in all areas of Security, Quality, Ethics, Working Practices, Finance and Sustainability. In these challenging times, we recognise that it’s essential to prove our due diligence as part of any supply chain. In the past year alone we’ve spent well over 250 hours completing assessment criteria and audit documentation (this uncomfortable fact comes courtesy of our ultra-accurate tracking system that has also been audited within an inch of it’s life!). 

We are, obviously, delighted that we’ve achieved an EcoVadis Gold Rating which places our sustainability practices in the top 5% of businesses of the 125,000 businesses audited worldwide. 

But, essentially, it’s a tick-in-the-box exercise that required 258 question responses (and their associated sub-questions) and involved two months of effort and an £800 fee. It could be a difficult thing to celebrate! However, rather than viewing it as a necessary evil, we’re fully embracing the governance process and here’s why:

We’re reinforcing our vision

Building a genuine purpose-led business is our passion, so we see these exercises as a much bigger cultural investment than simply answering a few hundred questions. Our policies, ways of working and approaches to partnerships have shifted massively in the past few years to reflect this commitment to becoming a ‘business for good’ and we’re not taking any short cuts. So, when we’re asked to complete an audit like EcoVadis, we can embrace it, in the knowledge that we have all the collateral and evidence to support a thorough and genuine verification of our business. It’s the result of hard work, deep rooted, cultural changing, business changing actions, over a long period of time but when we get the validation it’s all worth it.

We’re a ready-made partner

We pride ourselves on being easy to work with. For us, that means forming good partnerships, being good people, using streamlined processes and producing quality work that answers real business problems. But it also means having all the right accreditations and levels of trust in place so that we’re fully verified as a suitable partner, in perfect alignment with the ESG vision and standards of our clients. We want to make the procurement and selection process as simple as we can for our clients so that they don’t need to jump through any hoops to partner with us. 

So, that’s why accreditations like this matter. And it’s why we’ve been working with a vendor management team for the past 3 years to develop our low risk profile which comes hand-in-hand with a fully audited package and robust processes.

We’ll take pride in adding our EcoVadis Gold Badge to our credentials pack, alongside our Flexible Working, Cyber Security and Utilities and Financial Services accreditations. But, most of all, we’ll take time to celebrate with our team for continuing to build a great culture, a great business and an agency that clients and colleagues want to be part of.