As a future-proof partner in payment, we take our corporate social responsibility seriously at CCV. And today, we can proudly announce that our efforts are well-reflected in our latest EcoVadis ranking. We earned a Gold Medal, which places us in the top 5 percent in our market. Enny van de Velden, Chair of the Board of Directors and CCO at CCV: “This is a massive leap forward compared to last year, and we consider it a stimulating sign that we are moving in the right direction.”
The EcoVadis assessment includes 21 sustainability criteria across four core themes: Environment, Labor & Human Rights, Ethics and Sustainable Procurement. In our latest rating, which was completed on November 8, we earned a Gold Medal and scored 73 out of 100, which places CCV in the top 5 % globally. Our top performing sustainability theme was Ethics, where we scored 80 out of 100.
Focusing on sustainability is no longer just a moral imperative, as far as CCV is concerned, it is a necessity in this day and age. It helps address environmental challenges, meet regulatory requirements, satisfy consumer demands, reduce risks, cut costs, foster innovation, attract investment, engage employees, and build a strong and enduring brand.
Enny van de Velden: “At CCV, we strive to be a future-proof company. To us, this means that we are constantly reassessing, evaluating and trying to improve ourselves, creating value not only for our customers, but also for the employees and the society at large.”
#WeCare
In 2022, CCV launched a new, group-wide systematic vision for sustainability: #WeCare. To develop this vision and the connected CSR programme, we went to the core of our business, analysed and consulted different areas of our operations, processes and stakeholder groups. Van de Velden: “The result is an ambitious, systematic strategy that takes our CSR commitment to the next level. A strategy that brings sustainability even more to the core of our business, into our DNA.”
Here are some of the activities we have undertaken thus far, that have led us to increase our Ecovadis ranking and improve our CSR practices overall:
1. More internal awareness throughout the company
As last year was also the year in which we celebrated 65 years of CCV, we made sure to combine our festivities with an internal awareness campaign about #WeCare. This programme involves actions on 5 strategic pillars: Governance, Social, Corporate Citizenship, Environment and Value Chain. We communicated our goals in each field and undertook various activities during our 65-years celebrations to demonstrate our commitment, like building an insect hotel, picking up garbage in the surrounding areas of our offices, and visiting an elderly home to support them and train them in digital payments.
We have also shifted towards more sustainable processes and practices in all five #WeCare areas throughout our company, as you can read in our first annual Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) report.
2. Supply chain assessment
To improve our CSR practices, evaluating our supply chain was one of the first important steps we took last year. We made an honest and extensive assessment of our 29 strategic suppliers’ sustainability capabilities and based on the assessment of their sustainability scores, so far no suppliers are required to complete any remediation actions. CCV will continue to perform annual monitoring on all strategic suppliers, to ensure that the risk levels and the ESG performance of the suppliers do not suffer any negative changes.
3. CO2 audit & Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)
The next big thing we did last year was to assess our company-wide CO2 footprint and our product footprint with the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). For the former, we measured our direct and indirect emissions, electricity use, purchased goods and services, business travel, employee commuting, waste generated in operations and servers. The latter is a detailed assessment of the impact of our raw materials, manufacturing, distribution and the end-of-life phase of our products on the environment. We are now further analysing our findings and shifting towards more sustainable practices, processes and materials where possible.
4. Our first annual sustainability report
To summarise all activities and improvements properly, we created our first annual ESG-report this year, which shows our progress on our work to:
- Strengthen our governance systems and business model;
- Build a socially resilient and sustainable CCV;
- Respond to the needs of the society and to support the advancement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs);
- Reduce our environmental footprint;
- Strengthen our supply chain management system by adopting environmental and ethical principles in our procurement and due diligence process.
An example of this work is the development of CCV SoftPOS. SoftPOS is a business app that turns any Android device into a mobile payment terminal for contactless payments. This innovation makes payment technologies more accessible, while still delivering reliable payment solutions. It has the potential of reducing the need to purchase new hardware, using existing Android devices. This way, the innovation can reduce the environmental impact of devices in the payment sector.
John Kolthof, Chief Commercial Officer, CCV GmbH: “I believe that cooperation and innovation can be incredibly powerful in achieving the kind of success that our society, economy and communities expect from us.”
Yet another example is our work in the field of social responsibility. At CCV, human and labour rights provision is a continuous effort. We have a zero-tolerance policy for emotional, verbal or physical harassment. That’s why we have a reporting system that builds on our accountability as a corporate actor, supporting the identification and action on any deviant cases. And in 2022, we had 0 reported cases on claims of discrimination, harassment or other violation of human and labour rights.
Enny van de Velden: “This year, we proudly celebrated 65 years of CCV with a strong focus on the future of our company but also on our commitment to the future in general. Together, we all face the important task of making this world more inclusive, sustainable and, above all, fun. Zooming out, recalibrating and making new connections are essential steps for success. We will keep focusing on this so we can resume our journey towards our CSR goals at high speed.”
Curious to read more about our CSR activities and progress in 2022? You can find our full ESG-report here.
About Ecovadis
EcoVadis is the world’s largest and most trusted provider of business sustainability ratings, creating a global network of more than 100,000+ rated companies. They objectively rate all companies in various areas of supply chain sustainability.