As a company, we aim to deliver a positive impact to all of our stakeholders and improve the quality of life of all our employees, customers and the wider community. We believe this makes good business sense while also aligning with our core principles and values as a company.

Our policy is based on the following core principles;

To minimise the impact that we as a business have on the environment and promote sustainability wherever possible.
To not discriminate against any employee regardless of race, gender, sex, religion or anything else and support the growth of our employees.
To only work with suppliers that share our values and conduct business in an ethical manner.
To ensure that all business decisions are taken with our CSR policy in mind.
To regularly review our CSR policy and implementation process.

Minimise our impact and promote sustainability

We operate in a sector that has high energy demands in order to ensure safe working conditions for our staff and the highest quality products for our customers. That is why we are doing everything in our power as a company to minimise our impact on the environment and to promote sustainability. We do this by working with suppliers and manufacturers that align with this promise and who operate in a sustainable fashion.

Discrimination & Involvement

We are an inclusive and welcoming company that does not tolerate discrimination in any form and operates an inclusive environment for all. As a company, we strive to offer the best possible service for our customers and the only way we can do this is to have the best team. As such, we believe in investing in our employees through regular training and investing in their future. For further information, please refer to our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion policy.

Suppliers

We choose the suppliers that we work with carefully to ensure they offer both the highest quality product or service, and also ensure they share our values, and this is reviewed on a regular basis. For more information on how we choose the suppliers we work with, see our Modern Slavery Policy.

Environment and Sustainability Policy

We are committed to operating in a sustainable manner that ensures that our business needs are met but that we do not compromise the future for ourselves or others. The conservation of the environment is a fundamental priority for us. Our aim is to prevent pollution and to comply with all relevant environmental legislation, regulations and other environmental requirements.

We will regularly evaluate the environmental impact of our activities, products and services and we will take action to continually improve our environmental performance.

Environmentally Friendly Materials

Our team is regularly taking on extensive research and development, and working with manufacturers to find new materials that can be added to our print cycle and portfolio, that have lower carbon emissions than our current printable materials. We are striving to find the best materials that we can so that we can operate in the most eco-friendly way, while still maintaining the high quality that we offer to our customers.

Efficient Designs

While we are constantly striving to find new ways to be more sustainable in our business practices, we also look inwards to see what we can improve internally to have an impact. One way we are doing this is by making sure that we are as efficient in our design process as possible. We want to make sure that how we design our printable files in a way that allows us to print them as efficiently as possible, reducing the amount of by-products produced from printing and the amount of energy used to print our products.

Carbon Emissions and Net-Zero

We are committed to ensuring Figured You Design Studios is net zero. The use of sustainable practices, as mentioned above, is key to ensuring that our scope 1 & 2 emissions can be reduced to zero. We are in the process of establishing an action plan to facilitate this objective.

Our Workplace

We are committed to providing a quality service in a manner that ensures a safe, healthy workplace for our employees, visitors, and that minimises our potential impact on the environment. We will operate in compliance with all relevant environmental legislation and we will strive to use pollution prevention and environmental best practices in all we do.

We will:

Integrate the consideration for environmental concerns and impacts into all of our decision-making activities.
Promote environmental awareness among our employees and encourage them to work in an environmentally responsible manner.
Reduce waste through reuse and recycling, and limiting unnecessary consumption of materials.
Promote efficient use of space heating/lighting, equipment, materials and resources.
Communicate our environmental commitment to customers and the public and encourage them to support it.
Strive to continually improve our environmental performance and minimise the social impact and damage of activities by periodically reviewing this policy in light of our current and planned future activities.
Ascertain whether our suppliers have an environmental strategy that aligns with this policy, and use this as criteria for selection.

This environmental policy constitutes our formal declaration of commitment to environmental protection and demonstrates our commitment to continuous improvement in our environmental performance.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy

Statement of Policy

The aim of the policy is to ensure no job applicant or employee is discriminated against either directly or indirectly on any unlawful grounds.

Figured You Design Studios has overall responsibility for ensuring that this policy is implemented in accordance with the appropriate statutory requirements and full account will be taken of all available guidance and in particular any relevant Codes of Practice.

The policy will be communicated to all private contractors reminding them of their responsibilities towards the equality of opportunity.

Figured You Design Studios will maintain a neutral working environment in which no worker feels under threat or intimidated. We believe that all members of our community have the right to be treated with dignity and respect regardless of their age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, ethnicity, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation.

We will not tolerate unfair treatment or unlawful discrimination, whether intentional or unintentional, direct, or indirect.

Actions and Implementation

Figured You Design Studios is committed to The Equality Act 2010 by taking positive action to:

Comply with current legislative requirements and monitor if this is adhered to.
Develop services which take into consideration the needs of all members and do not unnecessarily discriminate against any individual or group.
Promote fair access to services, minimising any barriers to access.
Ensure content and language of all written content are non-discriminatory and free from any bias or stereotypical wording.
Ensuring staff and members have access to this information to assist them in planning, putting into practice and monitoring their rights and responsibilities under this policy.
Providing support and relevant training/updates for all staff and members and revising any policy or practice that could disadvantage individuals or groups.
Provision of regular CPD/updates for staff and members.
Ensure all staff members know how to offer feedback and register complaints.
Effective complaints procedures will be used to resolve complaints of discrimination with a full and prompt consideration under this policy, breaches of this policy will be dealt with through our complaints procedure.

Recruitment, selection and career development

We will endeavour, through appropriate training, to ensure that employees making selection and recruitment decisions will not discriminate, whether consciously or unconsciously, in making these decisions.

Promotion and career development will be made on merit. If you have any specific needs, we will accommodate and support you as far as practicable. All decisions relating to this will be made within the overall framework and principles of this policy.

Job descriptions, where used, will be in line with this equality, diversity and inclusion policy. Job requirements will be reflected accurately in any person's specifications. Figured You Design Studios will adopt a consistent, non-discriminatory approach to the advertising of vacancies.

Figured You Design Studios will not confine its recruitment to areas or social media sources that provide only, or mainly, applicants of a particular group.

All applicants who apply for jobs with us will receive fair treatment and will be considered solely for their ability to do the job.

All employees involved in the recruitment process will periodically review their selection criteria to ensure that they are related to the job requirements and do not unlawfully discriminate.

Shortlisting and interviewing will be carried out by more than one person where possible.

Monitoring

We will maintain and review the employment records of all employees in order to monitor the progress of this policy.

Monitoring may involve:

The collection and classification of information regarding the sex, age, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, religion or belief, current working pattern, flexible working arrangements, caring responsibilities and marital status for all employees, such information which may be used to examine the distribution of employees and the success rate of the applicants, and
Recording recruitment, training and promotional records of all employees, the decisions reached and the reason for those decisions.

The results of any monitoring procedure will be reviewed at regular intervals to assess the effectiveness of the implementation of this policy. Consideration will be given, if necessary, to adjusting this policy to afford greater equality of opportunities to all applicants and employees.

Health and Safety Policy

The following is a statement of the Figured You Design Studios health and safety policy in accordance with Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

It is our policy to ensure that as far as reasonably possible, the health and safety of all our employees, customers and any other persons that may be impacted by the business, is properly managed to mitigate the risk of injury. We are committed to ensuring that this policy remains relevant and up to date at all times and as such, it will be reviewed regularly by the company directors.

The overall responsibility for health and safety sits with the company directors and as such they will recommend and communicate any changes to the policy to all staff as and when required. They will also be responsible for ensuring the relevant training for staff is valid and up to date at all times. Health and Safety during business operations when no director is present is the responsibility of all staff present.

All employees have duties under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and are informed of their personal responsibilities to take due care of the health and safety of themselves and to ensure that they do not endanger other persons by their acts or omissions. Employees are informed that they must cooperate with the company in order that it can comply with the legal requirements placed upon it and in the implementation of this policy.

Risk assessments are put in place for all of the locations that we operate out of. These are to ensure the safety of both employees and customers. They are given to all employees who are assigned to that location and are reviewed regularly to ensure they are up-to-date and relevant. As a company, we encourage all members of staff to contribute their input on health and safety. As such, any risk that they identify should be reported to the directors for immediate review.

The training of all our employees is of the utmost importance to the company to ensure the safe and compliant operation of our services, from wherever we may be operating. All of our employees must have the relevant training for the job they will be undertaking at all times.

Modern Slavery Policy

Our Aims and Commitments

This policy is made pursuant to s.54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and sets out the steps that Figured You Design Studios is taking to ensure that modern slavery or human trafficking is not taking place within our business or supply chain.

Modern slavery encompasses slavery, servitude, human trafficking and forced labour. Figured You Design Studios has a zero-tolerance approach to any form of modern slavery. We are committed to acting ethically and with integrity and transparency in all business dealings and to putting effective systems and controls in place to safeguard against any form of modern slavery taking place within the business or our supply chain.

This policy applies to all persons working for us or on our behalf in any capacity, including employees at all levels, directors, volunteers and business partners.

Our Supply Chain

We engage with a wide variety of organisations for the delivery of a broad range of goods and services. Our supply chain partners vary in size and structure from very small locally sourced suppliers or contractors to large national institutions.

We encourage smaller businesses to join our supply chain as this accords with our desire to bring social and environmental benefits to the local communities in which we operate. We are conscious that there are commercial, legal and safety-related advantages to using suppliers who are able to demonstrate compliance and we seek to use external suppliers who share our values to maintain consistency of standards.

Where new suppliers are engaged, we will, to the best of our ability, check that they meet our broad assessment criteria or good business practices. This criteria include:

Insurances
Health & safety documentation (including policies, procedures, risk assessments and method statements)
Current quality accreditations or certifications (e.g.: ISO 9001, ISO 14001, OHSAS18001, CHAS IIP, etc.…)
Supplier credentials (including qualifications, training and competency)
Customer references
Details of any prosecutions or notices for improvement

We have contracts in place with many of our corporate suppliers. As part of these contracts, we require that suppliers do not engage in any activity that is contrary to the Modern Slavery Act. Over time we will achieve the inclusion of this contractual requirement in all business relations.

Policies and Procedures to Resist Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking

Figured You Design Studios will achieve these aims through our initiatives to identify and mitigate risk in the following ways (but not limited to):

More stringent vetting of our supply chain through our approved supplier process and performance reviews
Continually review our practices to check that all employees are paid at least the minimum wage and have a right to work
Encourage the reporting of concerns and protection of whistle-blowers
Will not knowingly support or deal with any business involved in modern slavery practices or human trafficking
Have zero tolerance for slavery and human trafficking through colleague understanding of risks in our business, providing guidance to relevant managers and colleagues on the need to avoid those risks and possible indicators of them in the supply chain
Briefing directors and senior managers, and how these may arise within the business or supply chain

We have reviewed our existing policies and procedures to ensure that we are conducting business in an ethical and transparent manner.

The processes that we consider give us control in avoiding modern slavery or human trafficking under the act, within our business are:

The Figured You Design Studios employment contract
Grievance procedure
Right-to-Work policy
Equality and diversity policy
Whistleblowing policy
Staff handbook

Breaches of this policy

Any employee who breaches this policy will face disciplinary action, which could result in dismissal for misconduct or gross misconduct. We may terminate our relationship with other individuals and organisations working on our behalf if they breach this policy.

Declaration

This statement has been approved by the Figured You Design Studios Board of Directors and is made pursuant to section 54(1) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015

Other Policies

Corporate Social Responsibility Policy