Phoebus Software is a leading solutions provider to the banking, building society, and lending sectors. The company’s operational and commercial efficiencies driven by market-leading software make services simple and effective for clients. Sustainability has been ingrained in the DNA at Phoebus from the top down. CEO, Paul Hunt has embedded it in the company culture through his passion for the topic, resulting in lots of positive climate action already from the business.
Positive Planet sat down with Warren Gorman-Brooks, Executive Assistant, and Chief People Officer, Kate Langton to learn more about how ongoing support and collaboration is helping Phoebus champion sustainability in the IT services industry.
The Challenge
With lots of activities already in motion, from carbon reduction to social initiatives Phoebus wanted to communicate its sustainability wins and commitments to stakeholders and understood that Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) reporting was an important part of meeting client needs. However, the business faced challenges in developing and presenting its impact in an official, easy-to-understand, publicly accessible format.
Another element that influenced Phoebus’ decision to access hands-on support was a knowledge gap among employees around the organisation’s carbon footprint. With the head office premises owned by an external entity, Phoebus struggled to understand its impact, lacking control over energy provider decisions. To add to this, outside of the green team, the company struggled to generate internal buy-in, creating a barrier to future sustainability goals and hindering decarbonisation progress.
The Positive Planet Solution
After external recommendations, and identifying clear synergies between Phoebus and Positive Planet values, Phoebus reached out for further knowledge, support, and guidance in their decarbonisation journey. The partnership has allowed the business to understand its data in more detail and gain insights into what is incorporated into the organisation’s carbon footprint. This has led to an internal push to improve data quality now that Phoebus has more visibility on emission hotspots within the business, ultimately, improving the accuracy of annual carbon footprint measurements.
On an engagement level, several Phoebus employees took part in Carbon Literacy training (CLT), a one-day training course with a qualification recognised by the United Nations. The course raised awareness of the carbon impacts of everyday activities among team members, encouraging climate conversations and new ideas on how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions within the workplace.
The Positive Planet team also worked closely with Phoebus to create an engaging ESG report to communicate its impact to wider stakeholders. The report has helped pull Phoebus’ sustainability information into one place, making existing positive impact clear to see, and future company goals easy to track and follow.
“As a business, we have learned a great deal about the topic of sustainability and how we can make better efforts to decrease our carbon emissions. We are making great strides with our sustainability efforts and are definitely ahead of the curve, within our market – this is thanks to us working alongside Positive Planet.
Our first two annual ESG Reports were created by Positive Planet, with input from our company. Both reports have been received very well both internally and externally.”
Warren Gorman-Brooks, Executive Assistant, Phoebus Software
The Benefits
Through the partnership, Phoebus now feels confident in setting clear and meaningful ambitions supported by the in-depth knowledge of Positive Planet’s sustainability team. This keeps sustainability front-of-mind within the company to achieve short term targets whilst remaining on track to reach its long term goals. Taking part in CLT has helped overcome challenges around internal engagement, too. Employees who took part felt more confident in discussing sustainability both internally and externally afterwards, and have committed to pledges that support decarbonisation within the company.
In the aspect of communication, the ESG report has made disclosing and digesting information around sustainability uncomplicated, from board level down to external stakeholders. So far, Phoebus’ ESG reports have been well received, with clients citing the documents are easily understandable and align with their own commitments.
Next Steps
As Phoebus continues to drive the importance of internal engagement, plans are in place to take a further 20 employees through CLT and apply for the Carbon Literate Organisation (CLO) Silver award. Further ambitions to become a Gold CLO will help maintain momentum as the internal training takes place.
Phoebus is also working on a supplier code of conduct which will help communicate its sustainability goals throughout its supply chain. The code of conduct aims to help suppliers begin to align with Phoebus’ targets, supporting the transition to a sustainable supply chain and reducing its Scope 3 emissions.
Work with Positive Planet will continue as we support Phoebus in navigating through their sustainability journey.
