Corporate Social Responsibility
|
At The Editorial Hub, we transfer our personal passion for making the world a better place into how we run our business. This Corporate Social Responsibility policy has been designed to ensure our business acts ethically; prioritising human rights and always keeping the social, economic and environmental effects of what we do front of mind. |
Introduction
It is no coincidence that The Editorial Hub operates in the academic publishing industry. Our work directly contributes to furthering academic endeavour and thereby making the world a better place. When completing this work, we ensure we provide the best possible service to our clients; including societies, publishers, institutions, but also authors, reviewers and editors.
But we also want to make the world a better place in many other respects. We have written this Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) policy to capture our overall approach to running our business and the specific approaches we have implemented to make this happen.
What is CSR?
To us, CSR is about making the world a better place through understanding and regulating the impact of our business, so that all our activities positively affect society as a whole. This policy sets out how we work ethically, taking into account both human rights as well as our social, economic and environmental impact.
Our CSR principles can be summarised as:
- Supporting and respecting human rights
- Commitment to UK law
- Ethical business conduct, including responsible trading
- Supportive and fair working environment
- Environmental responsibility
- Charitable support
- Continuous improvement.
Supporting and respecting human rights
We support and respect the protection of human rights and will ensure our staff do not abuse, or are complicit in the abuse of, human rights. Our Modern Slavery Statement sets out more detail.
Commitment to UK law
Our business fully complies with all applicable legislation, governmental rules, regulations and codes of conduct, including (but not limited to) the Bribery Act 2010, the Equality Act 2010, the UK GDPR (the retained European General Data Protection Regulations 2016), the Data Protection Act 2018, and the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003.
Ethical business conduct, including responsible trading
We conduct and promote high standards of business conduct and practise integrity and honesty in our daily work. We have zero-tolerance for corruption, as outlined in our Anti-Bribery Statement and accompanying internal policy and gifts/hospitality register. All staff are required to undertake anti-bribery training upon induction and at least annually thereafter.
We aim to purchase services from ethical suppliers and seek to establish that our suppliers only supply ethical customers. We are committed to paying our suppliers properly and on time.
We respect the opinions of our clients and customers and actively seek their feedback so that we can improve our processes, procedures and services.
We are committed to the correct and lawful treatment of personal data. All staff are expected to adhere to the tenets of our Information Standard, which is supported by a guidance document, annual training, our internal data breach policy and a retention schedule. Our Privacy Notice sets out how we process personal data, and we have equivalent notices for candidates and staff.
Supportive and fair working environment
We comply with all relevant legislation, but go above and beyond this to create a supportive and fair work environment. We expect our staff to adhere to our internal Anti-Harassment and Bullying Policy, and we actively promote equal opportunities as outlined in our Equality and Diversity Statement and accompanying internal policy. All staff must complete equality and diversity training upon induction and biennially thereafter.
As explained in our Modern Slavery Statement, we are committed to follow the terms of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and will fight against any breaches of the Act in our supply chain and in the wider industry.
All our staff are freelancers and work remotely. We provide best practice guidance on healthy and safe homeworking. We promote work-life balance and healthy working practices to ensure staff are working effectively and efficiently rather than risking being overloaded. We commit to paying our staff correctly and on time.
Our team structure and open communication methods ensure that all team members are empowered to ask questions in a safe and supportive environment, and are supported whenever needed, in both group and individual settings.
We actively encourage our staff to take regular annual leave and facilitate a supportive team environment where team members cover each other’s work so that they can enjoy their time off.
Staff are trained on how to complete their work upon induction and regularly thereafter to facilitate their personal and professional development. Our regular internal company newsletter celebrates individual and professional achievements, as well as communicating best practice, helpful hints and company news.
Environmental responsibility
We recognise that climate change is one of the most important issues we face. The publishing industry plays a crucial role in the reduction of carbon emissions, most notably in the conversion of print to electronic publications and systems, and reducing travel. We commit to doing everything we can to help the industry reduce its carbon emissions and mitigate against climate change.
We have pledged to:
- Reduce our impact on the environment as much as possible.
- Ensure sustainability is taken into account in all business decisions.
- Comply with all applicable legislation, rules, regulations and codes of practice.
- Disseminate our environmental policy to staff and encourage its integration.
- Disseminate our environmental policy to suppliers and clients to encourage their participation.
Our staff all work remotely (the vast majority from home) and there is minimal travel pollution for work. Our meetings are all held online, and we encourage any clients to meet with us online too (where appropriate), to save environmental impact from work travel. We only issue electronic contracts to our staff, and we expect our staff to make use of our digital, cloud-based document storage solution and not to print out documents. We don’t routinely print marketing materials, and in the rare event that we do, we will ensure the paper supplier is FSC certified. We routinely ‘clean’ leavers’ email accounts to help reduce the carbon footprint incurred from email storage.
We use our internal newsletter as a tool to include hints and tips on living more sustainably – both from a work perspective but also informing staff so they can extend their choices into their personal lives. This could include reducing waste and encouraging recycling; switching off machines to avoid unnecessary usage; and using greener fuels, public transport, cycling or walking when travelling.
Charitable support
We ask our staff for nominations for any local, national or international charities they would like the business to support. To date we have supported Dogs for Good (who make life-changing differences for people with disabilities through the power of expertly trained dogs), and the Cleft Lip and Palate Association (a small charity supporting people born with a cleft and their families).
Continuous improvement
We will continue to review and improve upon this policy by engaging with, and listening to, our staff, clients, customers and suppliers. Our internal CSR Champion will help ensure this policy is embedded into our daily operations as well as regularly reviewing and developing it.