Impact Report 2022

Making the world a better place through the clients we support

As a service agency, our client projects are the biggest factor in our impact on the world. That’s why over 95% of our clients are nonprofits. Working with them, we help amplify the positive impact they are making in the world.

Since 2020, we have published client disclosure reports through Creative Climate Disclosure. We recognise the importance of being transparent about who pays the bills, and how the clients we choose to work with reflect our values. This year, instead of a separate Disclosure, we're presenting the key points here:

See below for intros to some of our 2022 projects. Click through to Instagram for more details on each project (it's recycled from our Xmas content calendar, that's a good thing right).

During 2022, we committed to investing in a new Innovation Lab. This Innovation Lab exists in addition to and in support of the three core areas of our business: Product Design & Build, Digital Marketing & Wagtail.

We set up the Lab to take on exciting projects that prompt us to explore the ‘whys’, ‘what ifs’, and ‘why nots’ of our sectors. The Lab’s mission is not just to pinpoint and address challenges but also to experiment with new technologies and product development. It’s central to fostering a culture of innovation at Torchbox.

Following the arrival of GPT-3.5, interest in AI at Torchbox came to a head and in Q4 we pivoted to focus on AI. Since then, the Lab has focused almost exclusively on the opportunities (and ethical challenges) for AI in the charity sector (and within Torchbox). Explore our Innovation Lab's thinking and follow our progress at ai.torchbox.com.

We contributed once again to the open-source world through our continued development and stewarding of Wagtail CMS.

In particular, 2022 saw the major 3.0 and 4.0 releases which included the massive Page Editor redesign.

The Wagtail team again welcomed interns via the Google Summer of Code project. Google sponsored three interns and we sponsored an additional project that we couldn't bear to turn down. And, in December 2022 for the first time, we joined the Outreachy Internship Programme. The Outreachy programme provides internships to people subject to systemic bias and impacted by underrepresentation in the technical industry where they are living.

Putting our values front and centre

We believe we have a duty to do business responsibly for the benefit of all people and the planet - it is a pillar of our vision for the next three years of Torchbox.

We’re passionate about becoming a truly sustainable business. My role is a new one to the business, allowing part of my time to be focused on measuring and reducing our carbon footprint and I've been supported by our Climate Voice Group and our Digital Sustainability Group in particular.

For the last five years, we’ve monitored our carbon footprint, and compensated for our impact through certified carbon removal projects.

This historical footprint only includes Scopes 1 & 2 and elements of Scope 3, specifically Employee Commuting, Homeworking, and Business Travel.

As the graphic below shows, our carbon footprint for this year shows a slight increase on last year's footprint although it is still significantly below the original 2018 benchmark.

A significant challenge is our rapid growth. In the past five years, we’ve more than doubled in size (and headcount). While our primary aim is to reduce our footprint year on year, it is worth noting that our carbon intensity per employee has fallen from 0.58 tCO2e (tonnes CO2 equivalent) in 2021 to 0.50 tCO2e in 2022.

The above Carbon Footprint accounts for our Scopes 1, 2 & owned Scope 3 emissions - this includes Business Travel, Waste (and Water), and Employee Commute (and Homeworking) out of the Scope 3 Upstream categories. It's what we've been measuring for the last five years now.

However, this year we have been working with Inhabit.eco to get a much more detailed understanding of our Scope 3 emissions and to set a new, more comprehensive benchmark, with our Digital Emissions Methodologies. We still aren't 100% there as we haven't tackled all of the Scope 3 categories, understanding Upstream Transportation and Distribution for example (like the emissions from delivering packages to our office) has prohibitive data collection costs. The diagram below from the Greenhouse Gas Protocol explains what's in each Scope.

Having now assessed our Scope 3 emissions, in particular 'Purchased Goods and Services which account for some 70% of our total emissions, we have arrived at a significantly larger footprint of 229.78 tCO2e.

The table below shows a more complete view of our Carbon Footprint in a number of forms that may help prospective clients compare our footprint with other potential suppliers.

*Owned Scope 3 emissions only include Business Travel, Waste (and Water) and Employee Commute (and Homeworking)

**This Scope 3 figure includes Purchased Goods and Services, Capital Goods, Fuel and Energy Related Activities, and Use of Sold Products in addition to our ‘owned Scope 3 emissions’. Having read the GHG Protocol Guidance, we have included emissions relating to our clients’ website hosting. While this does NOT remove them from any client’s own Scope 3 emissions, it does mean that both parties have an incentive to reduce them.

We now need to focus our efforts on reducing our emissions across the business and next year we hope to confirm our strategy for both near and long-term reduction as part of the Race to Zero.

Our Civic Engagement Group has been set up to help us to contribute to our communities. They also highlight volunteering opportunities and encourage us all to become active members of our communities.

This year we’ve donated over £5,000 to charities, supported local communities with onHand, and built sleep pods to provide a safe shelter for homeless people across Bristol. We also teamed up with our friends at the Marine Conservation Society to organise a big beach clean up on the Weston-Super-Mare seafront.

We want Torchbox to be somewhere people are proud to work. Where everyone feels valued, heard, and supported. And we believe that investing in one another's development is one of the most important things we do.

We’re now a 100% employee-owned AND financially-free business! Back in 2019, when we became employee-owned, we set out to achieve financial freedom within five years; we’ve done it in three.

Having a growth mindset is a big part of being an owner at Torchbox. We're backing this up with tools, like Lattice, and training. The Grow programme is all about nurturing career ambitions, both short and long-term, with solid managerial support. We're ramping up Grow up by welcoming a new People Manager specialising in Learning & Development and improved manager training.

Thoughtful, candid feedback, delivered sensitively helps us all to flourish. With our Continuous Feedback process, every Torchbox co-owner has a safe place to share and learn together.

Being a truly inclusive employer is about more than just recruiting a diverse team. Our Diversity and Inclusion Voice Group is working hard to ensure Torchbox is a fair, supportive and enjoyable workplace for everyone.

We’re making our policies more inclusive by using language that includes everyone and is easy to read and understand. We’ve also put in place more support for people returning to work after a break and created a new policy to help people going through menopause.

Over the past few years, we’ve made a number of improvements that focus on putting our people's mental, physical and emotional wellbeing first.

Many of the initiatives have been spearheaded by our Wellbeing Voice Group. As a team, they work to ensure all of our needs are listened to, and they advocate for change on our behalf where it’s needed.

One of the recent changes we’ve made is the addition of wellbeing rooms in both of our offices. These are private spaces for everybody to use, whether that's to breastfeed, pray, meditate or just to relax and take some time out when needed. We’ve also set up free access to Headspace and invested in training up a team of qualified Mental First Aiders.

We also joined the fight for better mental health at work by signing up to Mind's Workplace Wellbeing Index. The Index provides a safe space for us to contribute our thoughts and experiences on mental health, which we'll use to implement new initiatives with help and guidance from the experts at Mind.

Along with the changes we’re making as a business, we’ve also invested in initiatives to make living more sustainably easier and more accessible for our employees.

Our Sustainable Holiday Travel Policy gives everyone up to two extra days of paid holiday when we choose to travel by land or sea, instead of air. For commuting, our Cycle To Work scheme now has an unlimited budget, so that everyone can get the bike they really want.

Understanding more about our individual carbon footprint can help us make small changes that really add up. That’s why every employee is offered a subscription to Giki Zero, a behaviour change platform that aims to help us all leave a lighter footprint on the planet. Led by our climate group, we also regularly take part in initiatives such as Plastic Free July, Veganuary and Zero Waste Week.

We look forward to making some big steps forward on our Net Zero strategy alongside many initiatives that will make Torchbox a better place to work and a better corporate citizen.

Purposeful impact is baked into our everyday work and we'll continue to empower many of the world's great changemakers to achieve more with digital, we look forward to reporting on our projects and their impact.

And we’ll return with the 2023 report next year. The format may change in order to align with B Corp's five assessment areas but we look forward to sharing news of our progress, including the many initiatives that are already underway.