Environmental, social and governance (ESG) and the route towards a better tomorrow

SafeLane Global’s core purpose has always been to protect people and communities, in the UK and internationally.  This ambition has always been directly visible through one of SafeLane Global’s key operations – clearing landmines and UXO.   However, SafeLane’s aspiration does not only pertain to its operations – it also pertains to how said operations are conducted.

That is to say, clearing UXO and landmines is one way to keep the world safe.  Another way to keep the world safe is to ensure a business’s operations are not only harmless to the world, but that they also provide a positive impact.

Creating a positive impact has always been a part of SafeLane’s ethos – be it surveying for and clearing UXO for an offshore wind farm or providing geothermal solutions for city councils. This year, SafeLane has decided to enhance its ESG (environmental, social, and corporate governance) performance by adopting the Future-Fit methodology – allowing it to record real, measurable progress across 17 goals.

What is the Future-Fit methodology?

The Future-Fit Foundation is a charity organisation designed to create a future fit society – a world in which life can flourish without harming the world or its inhabitants.  

The Future-Fit Foundation has converted the United Nations’ (UN) 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into principles, goals, indicators and guides that allow for ESG progress to be easily benchmarked and measured. 

The Future-Fit Foundation’s resources are free for anyone and everyone to access and use.  SafeLane Global greatly encourages its stakeholders and you, the reader, to watch the Future-Fit crash course and consider implementing its methodologies into your workplace.

Why Future-Fit?

When it comes to ESG, there are a multitude of varying methodologies, each with conflicting ideas, advantages, and disadvantages.  The ESG field is still relatively new, and there are no hard-and-fast rules or structures, nor obvious choices or frameworks.

When selecting an ESG methodology, SafeLane’s main priority was to avoid greenwashing – i.e., vague, unverifiable, and often untrue environmental progress indicators.  The Future-Fit methodology avoids this by utilising performance indicators grounded in the UN’s SDGs and a variety of credible third-party literature.  SafeLane Global is already registered with the UN’s Global Compact (which utilises the UN’s SDGs) and it releases a progress report annually.  This overlapping -functionality means greater synergy and smoother implementation when it comes to the Future-Fit methodology.

Furthermore, the Future-Fit’s comprehensive range of information, documentation, and guides means that each goal is easy to understand, implement, measure, and report.  By utilising the Future -Fit benchmark, real progress can be seen and compared.

SafeLane Global and Future-Fit

SafeLane Global has established a dedicated team of future-minded employees that will be responsible for managing SafeLane’s ESG progress.  SafeLane’s Future-Fit team has selected 17 goals to pursue, which can be seen below:

Our ESG team is already hard at work benchmarking these goals.  Afterwards, short-term and long-term objectives will be set in place, and SafeLane will continually measure its progress against its benchmark and its objectives.

SafeLane’s ESG team has already established benchmarks and have begun progress on several of these goals including:

• BE07: Operational waste is eliminated – to eliminate all waste generation and reuse, recycle, and repurpose any other waste. SafeLane has measured its current recycling practices (across 10 UK offices) and is now taking steps to ensure any and all waste that can be recycled will be recycled.
• BE11: Employees are paid at least a living wage – SafeLane’s employees are all paid at least the Minimum Wage, as per the law. However, SafeLane plans to go above and beyond, ensuring that 100% of its employees are paid the Real Living Wage (where set) by Q1 2023.
• BE13: Employees are not subject to discrimination – SafeLane is a non-discriminatory employer and does not discriminate against race, age, ancestry, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, religion, gender, gender expression, or military status. SafeLane Global is now going above and beyond to ensure a diverse workplace, and will be implementing HR policies to ensure the freedom of gender expression for LGBTQIA+ employees.

We, at SafeLane Global, are working actively on all 17 goals, and hope to share more updates with you on a regular basis, through our social media posts and our website blog.

Each of our selected goals will be applicable for all of our UK offices. Once our Future-Fit methodologies have been successfully implemented within the UK, we will extend our measuring and benchmarking practices to our international operations.   

Future-Fit – the way forward

SafeLane Global is committed to the Future-Fit initiative and believes it is the best tool available for transforming the global economy into a harmonious and harm-free, sustainable system.

If you are interested in following SafeLane’s ESG journey, please check our blog regularly and subscribe to our social media channels:

Facebook ｜  LinkedIn ｜ Twitter ｜  Instagram ｜  YouTube

If you would like to become a Future-Fit business, please visit the Future-Fit website for more information.  Alternatively, contact our ESG team leader via henry.welling@safelaneglobal.com – we would be more than happy to share our knowledge with you and answer any other questions.