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At ev.energy, we’re proud to be part of the B Corp community. The movement ensures our business is driving change with a commitment to our customers, employees, the wider community and the environment. To celebrate B Corp Month, our Co-Founders Nick and Chris take us behind the B and share what it means to our business.
In 2020, we became a Certified B Corporation and joined a fantastic community of businesses that are committed to creating a positive impact on society and the environment. The movement now stands at 4,600 B Corps in 78 countries, according to the B Corp website, including brands such as Patagonia, Ben & Jerry’s and Aesop.
Becoming a B Corp at the early stages of building our business, just over 2 years since we registered our company, was hugely important to us and the small team supporting us at the time and it continues to set us on the right path to scale ethically.
We believe the value of our business should be greater than the profit it makes. The best businesses have a commitment to delivering social good and a positive impact on the environment.
Our B Corp status goes hand-in-hand with our mission to provide cheaper, greener and simpler electric vehicle charging to everyone.
By putting drivers at the forefront, our product is delivering meaningful benefits through cheaper and more convenient EV charging and rewards for balancing energy usage across our power grids which ensures that they do not get overloaded.
Not only does this keep the lights on for millions of people around the world, particularly where ageing energy networks are under strain, it also helps to prevent wildfires in areas like California, and it’s key to decarbonising global energy consumption.
What we’re building has benefits for our customers and our business, but also for our society and environment. We call this a “win-win-win” and it’s a value that everyone at ev.energy is committed to.
We’ve been lucky to build a hardworking, forward-thinking team who are excited about solving problems, building products and providing services that move us forward. Attracting great talent is pinnacle to building a successful business that provides a positive impact for more than just the bottom line.
It’s rewarding to see so many people who joined us early in our development before we became B Corp Certified are still with us today. In fact, our team have been huge advocates of the B Corp community.
We’ve always set out to reward our employees in the right way, with fair and transparent salaries, shares in our success, appropriate holidays, great benefits and plenty of room for personal growth through our progression framework, but B Corp helps to signal that commitment loud and clear.
We’re constantly taking action to make ev.energy a better place to work. For example, with a number of new hires on the horizon, we’re currently taking a close look at our onboarding process to set every new joiner up for success.
As well as setting an obligation for us as Co-Founders, it gives us a framework too. We’re not starting from scratch when introducing business policies, which prevents a lot of headaches for a business of our size and allows us to implement changes quickly.
Above all, providing structure to our company values is helping us to foster an ethical and progressive community with diverse views and talents, and ensure everyone is aligned as the company scales, particularly as a flexible, remote team working across multiple timezones.
Our team is focused on the values of stewardship, trust and transparency, inclusion, action, ambition, and thinking “win-win-win” for our customers, business and the planet.
Having the B Corp framework in place and speaking about it openly ensures that internally, employees at every level feel comfortable speaking up about what matters to them. We’re all responsible for holding each other to account.
Giving employees the autonomy and space to grow has also allowed communities, such as our LGBTQ+ and women & non-binary employee groups to blossom naturally.
Stewardship is one of our values because we believe in leaving everything better than we found it, including the environment. The whole team takes this very seriously.
As a business, we’re committed to regular ESG reports, including on our carbon impact as a business, and we’re delighted to have achieved carbon-negative status.
In our Carbon Impact Report for 2021, we found that the business saved 1243 tonnes of carbon emissions by enabling our drivers to charge up when cleaner energy is more readily available and by driving EV adoption. That’s over 857 tonnes of net carbon savings when you factor in the 386 tonnes of impact from our entire team and the tools which we use.
Ultimately, our B Corp status helps us attract and foster a progressive community, justify our business decisions beyond financial means and move us forward. This includes our customers and team members, but also our commercial partners and investors too.
Our win-win-win formula is now working in multiple countries and regions around the world, including the UK, North America, Europe and Australia, and we can have an even greater impact as we scale up our efforts in new markets and with new partners.
We already work with some fantastic organisations that are transforming and decarbonising energy consumption. In particular, our platform is helping major energy companies prepare for EV adoption and decrease their impact on the planet too.
By taking action ourselves, we hope more organisations in our industry will join B Corp and do business in a positive way.
Despite some of the challenges of implementing B Corp recommendations for our remote company, with waste management, for example, we continue to review our score annually and look to make improvements where we can.
Thank you to our growing user base, team and partners for being part of the movement and plugging into better.
Nick and Chris
Co-Founders of ev.energy
We’re hiring. Check out the latest opportunities via the ev.energy careers page.
