At Cushon we recognise that we have a responsibility to our employees, customers, investors, partners and the wider community to try and conduct our business activities in a sustainable way.

As a workplace savings and pension provider, our sustainability policy isn’t limited to our day-to-day activities and operation, it also set out our approach to incorporate ethical considerations within our range of Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs), and how we work with the Trustees of the Cushon Master Trust to try and incorporate a sustainable approach for pension members. As a fintech we believe that technology has a major role to play in the way that we design and deliver our solutions, interact with our customers and partners, and allow customers to manage their savings and investments with us in a sustainable way.

Our Sustainability Policy is based upon a set of principles applied to each of the following areas:

• Our products are delivered through our market leading technology. Customers can purchase and access Cushon products through a mobile app or desktop computer. Aside from meeting certain regulatory requirements, there is no need for paper.

• We, wherever possible, communicate with our customers and partners digitally to avoid unnecessary travel and resultant CO2 emissions.

• We offer chat support options via our websites to offer an instant and low touch way to communicate with our customer support teams.

• We have and will continue to support alternative working arrangements so that we continually reduce the need for our product, development and client delivery teams to travel to the office and meetings.

• We encourage our corporate clients and partners to allow us to communicate with them, their customers and their employees using digital solutions, and online portals rather than traditional face to face methods.

• Where our employees do need to attend physical face to face meetings, we encourage them to walk, cycle and/or use public transport.

• If we offer promotional items for trade fairs for instance, we keep these to a minimum and ensure that they are manufactured and procured from sustainable sources.

• We continually develop or look for third party solutions that reduce the need for travel and paper.

• We share our sustainability policy with customers, partners, clients, and prospective clients to ensure buy-in to our sustainable approach.

• Our staff wherever possible are encouraged to work remotely so we can maintain a smaller office space for meetings and hot desking, to reduce our carbon footprint and reduce the need for travel.

• We, wherever possible conduct internal meetings via teleconferencing or videoconferencing to again reduce the need for travel.

• Where our employees need to attend the office, we encourage walking, cycling and/or use of public transport.

• As a fintech business, there is very little need for paper and other office consumables. However, where these are needed, we will ensure that they are manufactured and procured from sustainable sources.

• We conduct all our digital business using cloud services so have no server room and create no residual emissions from doing business.

• We reduce energy consumption by purchasing energy efficient equipment.

• Wherever possible, we purchase electricity from a supplier committed to renewable energy.

• We track our energy, water and waste usage.

• We ensure that any office furniture is manufactured and procured from sustainable sources and can be recycled.

• We purchase fair-trade and/or organic beverages.

• We recycle any office waste and arrange for the reuse of redundant office equipment.

• We have environment stewardship posters in our office reminding employees to recycle appropriate waste and where possible use reusable supplies (cups, bottles, kitchenware).

• All our employees are made aware of our sustainability policy.

• We encourage all our employees to undertake voluntary work within their local communities and to look to offset any carbon emissions from their private activities.

• We provide our staff with support and equipment necessary for them to work remotely.

• We encourage and fully support remote working; we actively look to recruit employees from across the UK thereby improving our ability to attract the best talent.

• We periodically review our working practices to look for sustainability improvements.

• ISAs are discretionary investments which means that we can't default investors into any particular investment fund, but we provide customers with ethical investment options and information about the underlying investments.

• We produce educational material such as webinars to ensure that all our customers are aware of responsible investing, what this means to them and the options available to them.

• We periodically review the investment choices available to our customers and the take-up of the ethical investment options.

• We periodically conduct independent research to assess customer attitudes and may use this research to develop products that try to meet the needs of our customers.

• We continue to develop our mobile app and encourage use amongst our customers to avoid any need for paper.

• We use our algorithm to optimise our investment portfolios which requires fewer resources and overheads.