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As the landscape of society and the economy changes and adapts, so to must businesses recognise the importance of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and sustainability. Grant Thornton Ireland continues to recognise the vital role that CSR and sustainability play into the way we conduct our business, with initiatives that support a truly diverse workforce, community outreach programmes, and efforts to leave a positive legacy on the environment.

CSR

In supporting the next generation, Grant Thornton Ireland works in partnership with local schools and universities to help students realise their fullest potential. The long-standing initiative supporting the Trinity Access Programme at Trinity College Dublin prepares students from under-represented backgrounds, such as those from disadvantaged areas, to attend college.

For over 12 years, Grant Thornton has been making an annual financial contribution to help fund the programme, providing engaging soft-skills training to all students, and providing mentoring by staff who volunteer to work on a one-to-one basis with students throughout the academic year. In addition to this, four students are offered summer internships at Grant Thornton offices.

In addition to staff offering reading support to local primary school children through Business in the Community Ireland’s (BITC) Time to Read programme, Grant Thornton is also planning to support talks on the environment and climate change at a school near its City Quay headquarters in Dublin.

Covid-19 restrictions have proved challenging for CSR activity but in adapting to a changed landscape, Grant Thornton has managed to shift towards virtual events, including a virtual version of the GT5K annual corporate challenge. Grant Thornton invites businesses to enter the event, the profits from which are split between its 2021 charity partners, The Alzheimer Society of Ireland, the Alzheimer’s Society in Northern Ireland and Athletic Ireland’s (the organising body) Young Athletes programme.

In Association with

Neal Taylor, Head of CSR at Grant Thornton said: “The focus of the firm’s CSR efforts has widened significantly in the last three years from purely community engagement and charity support to now encompass all aspects of sustainability, too”. Indeed, Grant Thornton has been working for the last two years towards achieving BITC’s Business Working Responsibly Mark, the leading independently audited standard for CSR and sustainability certification in Ireland.

Protecting The Environment

Climate change remains one of the biggest challenges of our time and Grant Thornton is playing its part to safeguard our planet. Last year, the firm signed a carbon pledge committing to a 50% reduction in carbon footprint by 2030. To achieve this target, the Green Scene committee was established to cut carbon usage throughout the organisation and educate staff in how to act responsibly in this area. As part of last October’s launch, bee bombs were posted to 1,600 employees so they could plant their own wildflower meadows.

Some of the steps the committee has already committed to include minimising waste generated by our operation, reusing and recycling wherever possible, and sourcing energy entirely from renewable suppliers, according to Lisa Ward, Grant Thornton Head of Premises & Facilities, who co-chairs the Green Scene Committee. who co-chairs the Green Scene Committee.

These measures are enhancing the move to a new LEED (leadership in energy and environmental design) certified building at City Quay and Grant Thornton’s new office in Cork. LEED is a globally recognised green building certification programme.

The Dublin office comes with 158 bicycle parking spaces, and there are plans afoot to link up with Bleeper Bikes, allowing staff to use its bike-sharing system rather than hiring taxis to meet clients. The firm is also teaming up with GoCar to introduce two electric vehicles on site with unique Grant Thornton branding.

Embrace: Grant Thornton’s Diversity & Inclusion Programme

People are at the heart of the business and teams built with varied backgrounds, cultures, ages, genders, gender identities, abilities and family types present diverse viewpoints. More importantly, Grant Thornton is committed to ensuring that every staff member feels that their individuality is embraced and that they feel they can bring their whole selves to work. The diversity and inclusion programme at Grant Thornton is called Embrace and currently has five main pillars: gender equality, ability (ensuring inclusivity for anyone living with a disability), LGBTQ+, family and ethnicity.

Dan Holland, head of diversity and inclusion, says: “It is an absolute necessity to have genuine engagement with diversity and inclusion if we are to continue to attract the type of colleagues we want. At its core, our ethos is about empowering people to maximise their performance and career in an inclusive and respectful environment.” Support for the annual Dublin Pride event took place online in June 2021 in the form of a series of webinars and round table online discussions with panellists, discussing issues such as the challenges facing the LGBTQ+ community in society and the workplace, the experiences of the transgender community and those living with HIV.

Six years ago, Grant Thornton introduced specific learning and development programmes for female colleagues to encourage them to further their careers without any structural obstacles. “These dedicated programmes have been successful in achieving and maintaining at least parity in the breakdown of female and male colleagues at assistant manager, manager and associate director levels,” says Holland.

“We have seen a significant increase in the number of female colleagues at director level, and while it’s not quite at parity we hope to achieve that in the next two years. The final hurdle is at partner level. There have been a far greater number of female partner appointments in the past two years than in previous years, which has increased female representation at partner level to 18%. This is encouraging, but there is a still a journey to travel. We are active members and advocates of the 30% Club and the initial target is to reach and maintain at least 30% female representation at Partner level. ”

Sustainability

With customers, policymakers, investors and jobseekers increasingly holding companies to account to ensure they deliver their goods and services in a sustainable manner, Grant Thornton has moved to embed sustainability not just throughout our business and but into our overall business strategy.

• Sustainathon In 2020, Grant Thornton teamed up with Irish Funds to create Sustainathon, an initiative to help the Irish funds industry as a collective play its part in tackling climate change. This initiative involved entrants from across the Irish Funds industry working together to identify and propose solutions to the sustainability agenda. The proposed solutions could relate to product innovations, new platforms for engagement, corporate initiatives, use of technologies, or other ideas.

Ronan Kelly, a manager in Financial Services Advisory, says: “Sustainathon 2020 really resonated with the industry, due to the focus on sustainability stemming from developments such as the drive towards more green funds and the EU’s non-financial disclosure reporting requirements.”

The winning entry was the Green Team Network, a forum for connecting and empowering the funds industry to support change towards a sustainable environment. Since presenting the idea at the Irish Funds Conference in October, Grant Thornton and Irish Funds have been working together to get the Green Team Network off the ground.

• Sustainability as a service Grant Thornton are now leveraging their experience in sustainability to support their client base and are refining a dedicated service offering to help their clients address challenges. One such challenge comes in the form of the plethora of emerging regulations, such as the proposed Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive that will greatly expand the number of companies required to make sustainability disclosures, or the recently passed EU taxonomy regulation. This regulation seeks to direct investments towards sustainable projects to meet EU climate and energy targets for 2030 and to implement initiatives outlined within the European Green Deal.

Grant Thornton’s sustainability specialist, Catherine Duggan noted: “Some of our clients are at an advanced stage in understanding the regulations and are seeking support in surpassing the minimum requirements and becoming a market leader. For others, their journey is just beginning, and often they don’t know where to start. Our objective is to help all of our clients understand the regulatory landscape today and what the future landscape looks like, and to integrate this changing environment into their business strategy”.

Photo: Grant Thornton employees at the launch of the Grant Thornton Gender Identity and Gender Expression policy in 2019