In shaping our approach to ESG we continue to seek an understanding of the interests of both internal and external stakeholders on the ESG elements relevant to our business. This helps inform how we develop our ESG strategy and where we place our focus.
In 2022 we surveyed our customers, investors, suppliers and partners on what ESG risks, issues and opportunities Serco should prioritise going forward. We similarly surveyed internal stakeholder communities including our diversity networks, Serco Goes Green network, and early career programme cohorts, alongside senior business and functional management.
To enable us to reflect a broad set of external views we engaged a third party research partner to conduct detailed research into the materiality of these topics across our peers and competitors, regulators and policy makers, and public opinion in the media.
From the results we have seen that all stakeholders inside and outside of Serco are broadly aligned in what they believe are the most critical elements underpinning the sustainable delivery of public services: workforce, culture, governance – see our full updated materiality assessment below.
All the elements on the matrix are important to our overall ESG approach. The assessment has enabled us to recognise the level of priority different stakeholder groups have regarding each element, ranking these on a priority scale in comparison with each other. We recognise the need to continue to improve those elements identified in the upper right quadrant and will work to raise the importance and our impact from those in the bottom left. It serves to help us consider how to improve the visibility of these activities so that over time they will be viewed higher on the materiality assessment.
Just because an element is lower on the materiality assessment does not mean that we do not take it seriously. For example, whilst environmental protection and carbon and climate are to the left we are committed to a net zero transition and our environmental strategy has been a key focus for the year leading to an increased score through CDP from B in 2021 to A- in 2022. This process has helped focus our plans, however we continue to progress across all elements in our framework.