At Happl, we use the term ‘ESG’ to describe a comprehensive set of environmental, social and governance matters impacting our company. We put these concerns at the core of our operations.

What ESG means for us

We are following a definition of ESG developed with and by VentureESG which defines ESG across eight issue areas linked to E, S and G respectively.

1.    Environment: considering the environmental impact from Scope 1 (directly caused by the company, e.g. through facilities) and Scope 2 (indirectly caused, e.g. energy, electricity, waste) to Scope 3 (caused by upstream and downstream activities, e.g. business travel, transportation of the product, customers’ energy usage); targeting both measuring but most importantly reducing the impact across all scopes.

2.   Social:

a.  DEI: integrating diverse and inclusive practices across all areas of the business (e.g. diversity across all levels of the organization, inclusive hiring practices)

b.   Team and working environment: building a strong culture and being a conscientious employer (e.g. pay gap, parental leave, living wage)

c.  Responsible product design: designing and building products with consideration of the ethical and human implications on the end-user and society

d.   Supply chain: working towards an ethical and environmentally resilient supply chain (including a Supplier Code of Conduct embracing the UN’s Global Compact)

3.   Governance

a.  Legal and regulatory: being on top of and aligned to the latest laws, regulations and compliance standards (e.g. GDPR (and equivalent), UN Guiding Principles of Business and Human Rights, the eight core ILO conventions); the oversight of these issues should be ensured by the founding team and Board of Directors.

b.   Governance: having appropriate governance structures in place, according to the company’s stage (e.g. board structure, share structure); writing out a code of conduct (committing the company to high ethical standards); adopting a whistle-blower policy.

c.  Data privacy and security: instilling a strong culture of trust, responsibility and best practice (e.g. with internal systems) around data

How we operationalise ESG in Happl

●  ESG responsibility: while every member of our team is concerned with and thinks along the lines of ESG when making decisions, we have assigned the overall responsibility for ESG to Ben Towers. Our approach to ESG will be discussed regularly in our C-level meetings (at least once a year).

●  Hiring and working environment: we are committed to hiring a diverse team and providing an inclusive working environment. We have a specific DEI policy in place (including considerations of inclusive hiring, parental leave, pay gaps).

●  Good governance: all our decision making in both the advisory / oversight board and larger team is committed to good governance principles; across these bodies, we track a range of diversity metrics (e.g. gender/ethnicity of team and advisory board) and are committed to always keeping ideally a 50/50 gender split.

●  Impact & ESG report: We will publish a public Impact & ESG report every year

Any employee who has questions about this policy or requires further information on the subject of ESG should contact Ben Towers.

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