Corporate responsibility

At Charter Court, corporate responsibility is a vital part of how we do business. We are committed to integrating responsible business practices throughout our operations for the benefit of our shareholders, customers, employees and the community in which we operate.

Customers

Customer satisfaction is of the upmost importance to Charter Court and our customers continue to benefit from our dynamic product development aimed at providing solutions tailored to their changing needs. We served 172,000 customers as per H1 2019 with simple and straightforward savings products and specialist mortgage lending to those underserved by the high street banks.

People

Our people are at the heart of our success and we take great pride in our strong corporate culture, high levels of employee engagement across the Group and the continued external recognition of our collective efforts.

We have a fair and inclusive recruitment policy to ensure we select the best candidates regardless of their gender, race, sexual orientation, religion or age.

To ensure employees share in Charter Court’s success we regularly benchmark our employee remuneration and seek to offer attractive additional benefits including private pension, life cover, child care vouchers and medical insurance.

Community

Charter Court has established itself as one of the local area's largest and fastest growing employers, now employing 617¹ people primarily in our Wolverhampton base. Providing support to our community is an important part of our overall strategy.

Every year we ask our employees to nominate a local charity that they would like us to support. This decision is made by the Charity Committee with final approval from the CEO.

In 2018, we raised over £65,000 for Socks and Chocs, a local charity that supports the homeless in the West Midlands and beyond. In addition to our existing charitable contributions which have totalled £278,635 since 2008, Charter Court offers a ‘Good Causes’ fund that can be used towards special charity events being undertaken by, or linked to, employees or their families. We also have longstanding relationships as supporters of local cricket and rugby clubs.

^{1 As at 31st December 2018.}

Environment

By the nature of what we do, and by having the majority of our employees in a single location, we have a relatively small impact on the environment.

However, we remain alert to the risks and opportunities presented in transitioning to a low carbon economy and we are committed to minimising our environmental footprint through initiatives such as discouraging printing and running a paper collection and recycling programme. The latter has resulted in the equivalent of 640 trees being saved in 2018².

We recognise that some degree of printing is inevitable in an office-based environment and we ensure the print cartridges we use are 100% recycled. In 2018, we achieved ISO14001 in Environmental Management through a series of initiatives including the formation of an Environmental Committee and the conversion of office lighting to more efficient LED lights.

Additionally, we have installed car charging points at our Wolverhampton offices. The charging points are provided free of charge for employees with electric or hybrid vehicles, supporting our colleagues’ efforts to reduce their own environmental footprints.

Greenhouse gas emissions

We continue to take a beyond-compliance approach that includes operational control of facilities, purchased electricity and business travel associated with our business activities. View our latest report here.

^{2 Shred-IT report, 2018}