Sustainability
As a leading technology manufacturer with established operations across a wide range of sectors, Solid State recognises its responsibility to protect the environment, its employees and the communities where it operates. The Company is committed to sustainability and aims to work in alignment with the 17 United Nations Sustainability Goals, the basis of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by all UN member states in 2015 to ensure peace and prosperity for people and the planet now and in the future. In particular, as a specialist in industrial products, Solid State’s activities support Goal 9 – “to build resilient infrastructure promoting inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and foster innovation”.Our focus on ESG is a core part of our strategy and is integrated in all areas of our business. The Group is focused on ensuring we operate in an ethically, socially, and environmentally responsible way “Doing the right things the right way”.
Our dedicated ESG committee ensures we continue to make progress in improving our sustainability and challenging ourselves in making timely changes that benefit all stakeholders.
We have a clear focus on making a positive impact with our stakeholders on all three areas of ESG.
Minimising environmental impact whilst maximising social impact
Environmental
- Reduce consumption, reduce waste
- Improving sustainability of products and solutions for our customers
- Improving sustainability of sourcing from suppliers
Social
- Health, Safety & Wellbeing of our people
- Promoting equality, diversity and inclusion
- Supporting our communities and STEM outreach
- Engaging our people. promoting learning & development
Governance
- Corporate governance framework
- Code of conduct including anti-bribery and corruption
- Business ethics and integrity
Environment
We are committed to supporting the global journey in addressing climate change and we are pledging to mitigate our own impact on the environment. We recognise we have a responsibility in protecting our planet by reducing our environmental footprint and protecting the community in which we operate.
We are particularly focused on damaging emissions and have worked hard to reduce our scope 1 and scope 2 UK emissions by 48% since our base year FY 2019/20.
Simple changes can often make the most immediate impact and so we have made changes which reduce our CO2e emissions as follows:
- Electricity use; by switching electrical equipment off when there is no business benefit to leaving it on.
- Gas use; by continuing to focus on our mid-term investment to convert gas heating to electrical heating solutions aligned with the government’s commitment to make the grid green by 2035.
- Airfreight; by working with our customers to move from airfreight to sea freight where lead-times / other operational constraints allow or purchase closer to the business unit where possible.
- Use of company vehicles; by reducing average CO2e emissions of the fleet, and minimising company miles travelled by considering other alternatives to travel where appropriate. Additionally, we have increased the percentage of our fleet that are hybrid or electric powered to 75%.
Governance
The Board of Directors is committed to conducting business activities in an honest and ethical manner and seek to act professionally, fairly and with integrity with all our stakeholders. We actively promote a culture where all employees have the confidence to speak up and raise concerns or suggestions on how we can improve in the way we conduct our business activities.
The business follows the guidelines of the QCA Corporate Governance Code. Of particular focus are:
- Code of business conduct
- Anti-bribery and corruption Act
- Our dealings with customers
- Human rights and modern slavery
- Confidentiality
- Our dealings with suppliers
Social
We know that our success depends on our people. We recognise the important role our employees play, and that effective teamwork is critical to achieving our corporate goals.
We are committed to making our company a great place to work by providing an environment of teamwork and collaborative respect, where the staff are all valued for their contribution, and everyone is proud to be part of the Solid State family.
Employee engagement
We are committed to maintaining a high level of employee engagement across all sites and providing an environment where all employees can fulfil their potential. We regularly host leadership events with members of the Executive Board to allow the employees to voice their opinions and to receive updates on the business.
Our employee surveys provide employees with a further opportunity to provide feedback and suggest improvements on aspects such as leadership communication, wellbeing topics, team culture and work environment.
Diversity & inclusion
We are committed to maintaining and building an organisation that promotes diversity and inclusion in all areas of the business. We are proud of what we have achieved so far in improving diversity in our organisation which has been underpinned by our family culture which is inclusive and understanding that work life balance is a critical motivating factor.
We aim for all employees to feel welcome and an important part of the business. To achieve this we work hard to motivate, empower and support all employees, particularly those who may feel that they are in a minority, to understand themselves and their aims and how we might develop our organisation so that they might help us to collectively ensure that we achieve this important goal.
Health, wellbeing & safety
The health and wellbeing of our employees is important to us and throughout the year we regularly promote information and resources to highlight how to look after mental and physical wellbeing.
We continue to actively promote a safety-first culture. We have mandatory training and policies in place for all employees on workplace safety and practices. We track accidents and incidents on a monthly basis and have a global target to reduce our incident rate to zero.
Local community engagement
We recognise we have an important role within the communities in which we operate and therefore we actively encourage all our employees to participate in supporting our community.
Our employees are given time off to support local charities, we sponsor and support local sports teams and foodbanks, and we collectively engage in charitable fund raising activities.