Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate Social Responsibility 

Our vision is to be the world’s leading provider of product intelligence. 

We’ll do this by delivering reliable consumer insight into the hands of decision makers to develop and manage their products. 

At Vypr, we care about People and the impact we have on the World around us​. Our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy supports our vision and work through: 

• Promoting good business practices considering the needs of the environment, and both current and future generations 
• Providing oversight on our sustainability for stakeholders, customers, consumers and interested parties 
• Minimising our impact on the environment, both directly and through what we do for our customers and stakeholders 
• Providing support for the wellbeing and development of employees 
• Securing our own financial independence 
• Striving to have a  positive impact on the communities we live and work in 
• Developing our partnerships with suppliers 
• Continuous development of our governance and transparency 

The following commitments underpin our strategy. 

The Community and Charity Work 

At Vypr, we aspire to make positive contributions to the communities we live and work in . 

In 2022, we created our first People Committee made up of representatives across the business, who will help organise fundraising activities.  

Vypr’s current nominated charity is FareShare FareShare | Fighting hunger, tackling food waste in the UK.  We are supporting them through fund raising efforts and volunteer days. 

We also plant a UK native tree for every new licence we sell to a customer. This is helping to rebuild the National Forest Plant a Tree | National Forest 

Modern Slavery 

Modern slavery takes many forms, but commonly encompasses slavery, servitude, and compulsory labour. Human trafficking is the travel of another person for the purposes of exploiting them. Modern slavery and human trafficking often include the use of violence or coercion to transport, recruit, or harbour people to exploit them for forced and compulsory labour, bonded labour, and some forms of child labour. Victims of modern slavery are commonly in a position whereby they have no real opportunity or possibility of freeing themselves from their situation. Modern slavery and human trafficking are crimes and a serious violation of human rights. 

Vypr is committed to maintaining practices to combat modern slavery and human trafficking. This includes our own operations and those of our suppliers. Our work to tackle modern slavery is an evolving process, where we continue to engage with and assess our suppliers and business partners.  

We take a risk-based approach to our contracting processes and keep them under review. As part of this we carry out due diligence on all new contractors, suppliers, and other business partners to ensure the potential for modern slavery and human trafficking is significantly reduced. 

We are also committed to sharing best practice across our business network to promote this issue and harness opportunities to bring about positive change as well as reduce risk. 

The Environment and Sustainability 

With employees across the UK and Europe, Vypr is placing a renewed focus on its wider business operations as well as social and environmental impact. Our product has been created in a socially responsible way, designed to minimise impact on the environment by allowing for intelligent new product development (NPD) to occur. This reduces waste by helping companies narrow down their products at early stages and prevent unsuccessful products launching to market. 

Vypr is committed to ensuring sustainability is a key focus across all its activities which affect the environment and the communities in which we operate. We continually review our environmental performance ensuring that we look to improve on this wherever possible and move towards better working practices.  

We have an overarching framework, namely: 

• Effective management of the environment 
• Reviewing our energy use  
• Working towards carbon reduction; and 
• Responsible sourcing is of key importance to the sustained success of our business. 

To ensure continuous business and product innovation, we engage with our customers and stakeholders to encourage innovative development of our products and services to continually improve our sustainability performance.   

We are committed to fulfilling our share of the responsibility to keep the global temperature rise below 2° Celsius and we will continue to reduce our impact on the environment by: 

• Committing to the protection of the environment. This includes the prevention of pollution by utilising a shared workspace with strong green credentials, including certified 100% energy from renewable 
• Minimising the environmental impacts of our existing operations and ensuring that the environmental impacts of any new operations are fully assessed and minimised prior to their introduction. 
• Encouraging hybrid working to allow employees to adopt better ways of being environmentally responsible. 
• Seeking to reduce the need for business travel by hosting meetings online. 
• Working in our local community to support charities and promote the reduction of waste. 
• Re-using equipment where possible, increasing recycling and promoting the use of recycled materials in all operations. 
• Using resources appropriately and sustainably, and where possible, substituting primary resources with alternative materials. 

• Committing to waste prevention (including being paperless as much as possible), reuse of materials and recycling to minimise waste disposal. 
• Disposing of waste in a responsible manner. 
• Developing products that improve the quality and sustainability of the environment, to help to reduce and/or eliminate waste. 
• Increasing awareness of environmental issues amongst employees and ensuring all employees complete Environmental Awareness training on our e-learning platform. 

Vypr work within the service sector and there are no major environmental risks associated within our business. We identify, monitor, record and minimise all key aspects of our operations that could result in an adverse impact on the environment. 

Ethics 

Vypr maintains a culture of honesty, integrity and openness. Vypr is dedicated to protecting its employees, suppliers and customers from damaging or illegal incidents and as such, takes a proactive approach to preventing such actions. 

Vypr recognises the importance of maintaining a good reputation amongst customers, consumers and suppliers. 

Vypr promotes a culture of honesty and integrity and therefore encourages employees to be vigilant and report any cases of wrongdoing or any action that breaks our company policies. This policy applies to all employees and contractors. 

Vypr does not tolerate any behaviour that is considered a breach of our People policies. 

Vypr is committed to: 

• Protecting our employees’ mental and physical health and safety 
• Providing employees with the equipment and tools they require to carry out their work effectively and in a timely manner 
• Treating employees fairly and with respect and integrity 
• Providing relevant training and support 

Anti-Bribery and Corruption 

Vypr conducts business in an honest way, and without the use of corrupt practices or acts of bribery to obtain an unfair advantage. We are committed to ensuring adherence to the highest legal and ethical standards. This is reflected in every aspect of the way in which we operate.  

Vypr, its employees and agents must not solicit, offer or accept any gift or inducement which may influence their independence or business judgment, or which could create a conflict with any duty owed to the company or its customers and other stakeholders. 

Compliance with this process is carefully monitored, and we have processes in place to highlight any deviation from agreed practices. 

Equity, Diversity and Inclusivity 

Vypr prohibits discrimination on any of the protected grounds in the Equality Act 2010. 

We are committed to providing equal opportunities to all current and prospective employees regardless of age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity, race or ethnicity, religion or belief, gender identity, or marriage and civil partnership. 

We aspire to attract and retain a diverse workforce because, in our view, diversity enables better business outcomes. We also believe that a more inclusive workplace, where people of different backgrounds work together, ensures better outcomes for all employees. From application to interview, we place inclusion at the heart of all we do. 

We strongly encourage suitably qualified applicants from a wide range of backgrounds to apply and join Vypr. 

We take positive steps to ensure that our employees, stakeholders, contractors and customers can enjoy an experience that is fair, equitable and free from discrimination in their dealings with us. 

Supplier Management 

Vypr conducts due diligence checks on all suppliers, to ensure their philosophy and practices are aligned with ours. 

We give preference to suppliers with good Corporate Social Responsibility credentials.