We’re committed to being a purpose-led, responsible business – not just in how we operate and how we deliver improving returns to our investors, but in how we serve society, and how we respect our people and the environment.
This commitment is embedded into our strategies and decision-making processes to ensure we live and breathe our values in practice. We also work with our supply chain to ensure that together we can achieve wider social, economic and environmental benefits to safeguard employees and workers - especially those most at risk to labour exploitation – and vulnerable or disadvantaged families who face barriers to sustainable employment and income.
Whenever we bid for new work, we always carefully consider the ethics of the particular project or contract and whether it aligns with our values as a progressive and responsible business.
Out of the millions of people trapped in modern slavery across the world, 16 million are exploited by the private sector, so it’s paramount that businesses take action to end these abhorrent practices. At Capita, we’re committed to ensuring that through our management and operations we have the systems, policies and processes in place to identify any potential instances of exploitation and, if found, eradicate modern slavery in all its forms from our business and supply chain.
We’re focused on ensuring that everyone who works for us benefits from a working environment in which their fundamental human rights are respected and that anyone that we do business with also upholds these principles. Our modern slavery statement details policies, processes and actions we’ve taken to ensure that modern slavery and human trafficking do not take place in our supply chains or our business.
See our modern slavery statement (PDF)
In addition to our supply chain, we also recognise that there are risks in relation to modern slavery and human trafficking outside of our core stakeholder groups which is why we work closely with other partners such as recruitment agencies and trade unions:
- Recruitment agencies: We work with 175 agencies who must comply with our Supplier Charter and undergo our rigorous due diligence assessment to ensure they’re recruiting in line with our policies and values, and that they apply inclusive and value-based recruitment practices.
- Trade unions: We believe proactive and constructive union relations add value to all stakeholders concerned, providing our employees and recognised unions with genuine opportunities to contribute to our future success. We meet regularly with recognised trade unions - for example Unison, Communications Workers Union (CWU) and Unite – to discuss matters such as business performance, working conditions, strategy and local issues.
See our modern slavery statement (PDF)
We want to work with suppliers who share our values and support us in delivering our purpose to create better outcomes as we, in turn, treat them fairly and pay promptly. Our supplier charter sets out our commitments to support more small and medium-sized businesses, increase the diversity of our supply chain, promote supply chain resilience and encourage ambitious carbon reduction targets to tackle climate change.
We actively benchmark ourselves against external indices such as the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and EcoVadis Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) assessment to ensure our approach to responsible business is appropriate for our organisation and in line with industry best practice. We’re also the first business to be accredited by the Good Business Charter in 2020 which aims to raise the bar on business practices in several areas, notably employee wellbeing, policies on tax and the environment, and responsibilities towards customers and suppliers.
See our latest responsible business report. (PDF)
Our commitment
We’re committed to reducing our environmental impact and supporting our clients and suppliers to do the same - as a business of over 52,000 people across the world, we know that if we work together, we can make a real difference.
Underpinned by targets verified by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) - the global standard – we’ve set out an ambitious and far reaching roadmap to take us to net zero by 2035. These challenging targets are in line with global ambitions to limit warming to 1.5° and are strengthened by being linked to executive pay from 2022.
Our three phased approach is for us to reach operational net zero by 2025; operational and business travel net zero by 2030; and full net zero by 2035 including our supply chain, way ahead of the UK Government target of 2050.
Visit our climate change hub >
Business travel
We’re on track to reduce business travel emissions by 75% (from 2019’s baseline) by 2030, transitioning our fleet to EV by 2032. This is underpinned by our hybrid working model and a virtual first approach for routine meetings, keeping offices as collaboration places.
Energy use
We’re moving to renewable power wherever options are available and continuing our program of building efficiency initiatives.
Supply chain
We’re encouraging our supplier base of over 24,500 to tackle supply chain emissions, firstly focusing on supporting our 200 largest key suppliers to decarbonise their operations, setting science-based targets and providing guidance. Any new contract awards now have a set minimum criteria, and all new suppliers must meet new entry criteria prior to the contract being awarded.
Visit our climate change hub >