Corporate Social Responsibility
Our vision is for Vypr to lead the global market in new product intelligence, by powering our clients to deliver world-class agile innovation, through real-time predictive consumer insight.
Our corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy guides our work across:
- Providing oversight on our sustainability for stakeholders
- Minimising our impact on the environment, both directly and through what we do for our stakeholders
- Providing support for the wellbeing and development of staff
- Securing our own financial independence
- Improving the positive impact on the communities we live and work in
- Developing our partnerships with suppliers
- Continuous development of our governance and transparency
Underpinning our strategy is our commitment to the following:
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 improving our practices to combat modern slavery and human trafficking. This includes our own operations and those of our suppliers. Our work to tackle modern slavery will be an evolving process, where we will continue to engage with and assess our suppliers and business partners. We are also committed to sharing best practice across our business network to harness opportunities to bring about positive change as well as reduce risk.
THE ENVIRONMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY
With over 35 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 reduce any impact on the environment by allowing for intelligent NPD to occur, reducing 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 have a responsibility to identify, monitor and manage effectively what may constitute an impact. We will continually review our environmental performance ensuring that we look where possible to improve upon this, moving towards best working practice. We have an overarching framework, namely:
Effective management of the environment, our energy use, 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 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, including the prevention of pollution such as the level of harmful emissions from our office premises, by utilising a shared workspace.
- Minimising the environmental impacts of our existing operations and ensure that the environmental impacts of any new operations are fully assessed and minimised prior to their introduction.
- Encouraging employees who work from home to adopt better ways of being environmentally responsible.
- Seeking to reduce the need for business travel by utilising meetings electronically.
- Re-using equipment where possible, increase recycling and promote the use of recycled materials in all operations, including old technology and equipment.
- Using resources appropriately and sustainably, and where possible, substitute primary resources with alternative materials.
- Adopting the waste hierarchy of 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 all non-conforming products.
- Encouraging all employees in environmental issues and ensure all employees complete Environmental Awareness training on our e-learning platform
Vypr work within the services 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 clients from damaging or illegal actions and as such, takes a proactive approach to preventing such actions.
Vypr conducts due diligence checks on any suppliers, to ensure their philosophy and practices are aligned with ours. Vypr recognises the importance of maintaining a good reputation to both clients, consumers and suppliers.
Vypr does not tolerate any behaviour that is considered a breach of our People policies.
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 is committed to:
- protecting employee’s 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 must be 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. Accordingly, Vypr prohibits the offering, promising, giving, requesting, agreeing, receiving or accepting of any bribe, whether cash or other inducement to or from any person or company, wherever they are situated and whether they are a public official or body or private person or company by any individual employee, agent or other person or body acting on Vypr’s behalf in order to gain any commercial, contractual or regulatory advantage for Vypr in any way which is unethical or in order to gain any personal advantage, pecuniary or otherwise.
EQUALITY, 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 staff. From application to interview, we place inclusion at the heart of all we do.
In particular, we strongly encourage suitably qualified applicants from a wide range of backgrounds to apply and join Vypr.
We will take positive steps to ensure that our employees, stakeholders, contractors and clients can enjoy an experience that is fair, equitable and free from discrimination in their dealings with us.
THE COMMUNITY AND CHARITY WORK
At Vypr, we aspire to go above and beyond our charitable mission and to make positive contributions to the communities we are in, while ensuring this does not detract from our core purpose.
In 2022, we created our first People Committee made up of representatives across the business, who will help organise fundraising activities. We have appointed a local charity, St Ann’s Hospice Home – St Ann’s Hospice (sah.org.uk) and are holding fund raising events throughout the year to raise money. In addition, we also fundraise for ad-hoc charitable events, i.e. the War in Ukraine.