SUSTAINABILITY
Six to Zero
From our first sustainability commitments in 2021 to B Corp certification and beyond, this is 6 Group’s journey towards building a business that is good for its people, its partners and the planet.
What sustainability means for us
Our Sustainability journey begins with confirming why we are doing it and what we want to achieve. It is interesting that when most companies think and talk about Sustainability, they default to a situation where they see it only as a cost or something that will be taking away from what they currently do, or indeed make it harder to operate. Whilst there may be a bit of an impact initially, in the long term, Sustainability is good for business, people, and the planet – and it doesn’t take much for us to play our part.
With that in mind, 6 Group set out to create our mission “To be an absolutely for-profit regenerative corporation”, really living by our Values and Beliefs. That means we want to make sure that whatever we take from our planet, we “Go Beyond” and put back more. Whatever impact we have on our society, its people, and our own people, we are “Partnering” appropriately and giving back more.
We also want to secure the growth of our financial capital to ensure we can continue delivering outstanding outcomes for our clients and grow our business and our people.
Four sustainability goals
To focus our efforts, we identified the areas where we felt we could have the greatest impact. We adopted four UN Sustainable Development Goals that better represented what we wanted at the core of our sustainability journey:
These goals shaped our thinking across three areas:
A) Operational Goals — things we could affect through our direct operations;
B) Value-chain Goals — things we could do in engaging our stakeholders, including clients, candidates, suppliers and partners;
C) System-level Goals — the part we play in influencing the broader system, whether that is the executive search industry or the industries we serve.
What we did
Our first area of focus was SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being. We organise regular outdoor walks, bike rides and social activities to keep the team mentally and physically energised, and moved into a new office chosen specifically with wellbeing in mind, with plenty of natural light, fresh air and green plants.
Beyond the physical environment, we run programmes to support the mental and physical health of our people, including regular wellbeing check-ins. These are part of an ongoing commitment to creating a workplace where our team can thrive.
Our commitment to equality
SDG 5: Gender Equality and SDG 10: Reduced Inequality came out as the clear priorities when the team chose which UN Sustainable Development Goals to commit to. Both are deeply personal to everyone at 6 Group, and both make commercial sense: organisations with greater gender equality and inclusion consistently outperform those without. For us, this has always been a social and a commercial imperative.
With that in mind, we reviewed its processes, systems and services to ensure they were actively enabling gender equity and reducing inequality, giving clients a genuine advantage in attracting the best talent across the whole market, regardless of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, age or socio-economic background.
The first step was revisiting the diversity and inclusion statement, ensuring it now appears as a compulsory requirement on all attraction materials. From there, the proprietary selection methodology was reviewed and de-genderised, removing any language that implied gender, cultural or socio-economic bias. The result is a methodology focused purely on competency and capability rather than on CV pedigree or company background.
We also piloted blind shortlisting, with candidate reports stripped of gender, race, age and other identifying indicators. This is now offered as standard to clients. For every search, mapping and pipelining project, the percentage of gender-diverse candidates is tracked at each stage of the process, providing data and insight to drive continuous improvement.
Equality and inclusion underpin all we do. We continue exploring new partnerships and commitments for systemic industry change.
Climate Action
The final UN Sustainable Development Goal 6 Group committed to is SDG 13: Climate Action, which is central to the firm’s net-zero ambitions.
Emissions fall into three categories. Scope 1 emissions, those produced through direct operations, are minimal for a service-sector business. The focus has therefore been on Scope 2 and Scope 3.
On Scope 2, we switched to 100% renewable sources for electricity, gas and water, effectively neutralising the emissions impact of the firm’s energy consumption.
Scope 3 is more complex. For us, this covers IT equipment and business travel. All laptops, printers and mobile phones are refurbished and resold at the end of their working life rather than discarded, and the firm has moved towards purchasing refurbished stock. Business travel is measured and monitored to understand its emissions impact and inform future decisions.
Reducing environmental impact is an ongoing process. As the business grows, so does its potential footprint, which is why we continue to review its processes and policies at each stage of development.
Becoming a Certified B Corporation®
Achieving B Corp certification in July 2022 required 18 months of substantive change across the business: updating 6 Group’s legal status, reviewing protocols and procedures across all service lines, embedding employee wellbeing initiatives, strengthening diversity and inclusion practices, and overhauling utilities, travel and IT recycling systems.
The certification process involved extensive auditing across five impact areas: Governance, Workers, Community, Environment and Customers. Certification sets the standard for what comes next.
To track and share progress, we publish annual Impact Reports that reflect on the changes made and identify where further improvement is needed.
The inaugural 2022-2023 report captured the first year of certified progress, covering decision-making, employee wellbeing, diversity and environmental footprint. The 2023-2024 report was built on that foundation, with a sharper focus on three priorities: People, Performance and Planet.
Key developments since initial certification include:
Policy and Governance — strengthened whistleblower and employee grievance policies, a dedicated feedback and complaints webpage, an updated employee handbook, and revised customer data handling policies.
Environment — office energy, water and waste assessments and improvements, updated virtual working guidelines, a corporate travel policy prioritising virtual meetings with mandatory carbon offsetting for business flights, a Bike2Work scheme and EV charging points.
People and Community — ESG goals integrated into personal development plans with quarterly volunteering requirements, a paid volunteer time off policy, tracked volunteering hours, and a successful intern programme.
Every improvement reflects our team’s dedication. B Corp certification promises we’ll keep improving and making a positive difference. We look forward to building on this foundation and setting new ambitious goals for the next three years.
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