Here at IN, our overarching core value is that we care
This means that we care:
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About our team, and one another
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About our clients, and their businesses
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About our business – our cash flow and our bottom line – how can we teach our clients best practice if we don’t live and breathe it?
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About our community – which is why we support two local Stockport charities, and work closely with our local sixth form college Aquinas to develop, recruit and train young people
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About our environment – which is why we have partnered with PlanetMark
We are also acutely aware that it’s very easy to talk talk about caring, and no so easy to actually put our money where our mouths are and take appropriate action, even when it means it may cost us a little more.
Now, we’re under no illusion that we have a long way to go, and we’re not quite as squeaky green (see what I did there?????) as we’d like to be. But we have made a start, and we will be measured and monitored annually by PlanetMark to ensure we are making continuous progress and improvement in this area.
Incidentally, that fits in nicely with at least two of our sub values, which are the principle of Kaizen, or continuous and never ending improvement; and that of Honesty and Integrity, which for me means doing the right thing even when no one is looking.
So, how do we make an environmental difference in an accountancy firm?
It’s not quite so simple as in manufacturing for example, where we can clearly see the impact of what we do, so part of our strategy is about education – educating our team to be more environmentally conscious, so they in turn take that home with them, apply it and spread the word.
Little things can make a big difference – we are recycling better, and have a real focus on paper reduction presently.
Those of you who haven’t worked in a traditional accountancy firm would find it hard to believe quite how much paper a small team can go through each month!!
While I don’t expect we will ever be fully paperless (well, certainly not before Andy retires at least), we have a target of 40% reduction this year. Like any KPI, just noticing and tracking will make at least a 10% impact in the first instance!
PlanetMark have now helped us measure our carbon footprint for the year ended 31 December 2021, and found in that period we had a total carbon footprint of 15.8 tC0₂e, which equates to 1.1 tC0₂e per employee, and we have agreed the following targets with them in order to be able to re-certify next year:
- To Reduce carbon emissions by at least 2.5% each year
- With an actual target of 5% reduction each year
Have a look at what Planet Mark have to say about us in their blog below:
IN Accountancy | Financial Services | Planet Mark
You can be a service that offers a standard approach, or you can go above and beyond in every way – delivering a better service, giving back to the community, supporting charities and setting clear objective goals to reduce your carbon footprint.
We always aim to be the latter.
If you would like to know more, or find out how you can work with accountants who genuinely care, and always go the extra mile, simply reach out via all the usual channels – we look forward very much to hearing from you ????
https://linktr.ee/in_accountancy
