Sustainability principles

Caring for the environment, people and processes

Sustainability underpins everything we do across Helpful Digital. This means running our commercial operations in a socially useful way so that we can play a meaningful role in the communities where we work.

Our sustainability principles include:

• Environmental welfare: we use lower carbon sources, offset the carbon footprint of our servers, use recycled or sustainably-forested paper
• Low impact choices: we prefer trains to planes, buses and bikes to taxis or cars
• Ethical purchasing: we give credit where it’s due by observing copyright and we make our outputs available under licences that permit reuse
• Fairtrade: we always opt for sustainable and local suppliers
• Fair dealing: we work with people we trust and respect as professionals regardless of age, race, gender or sexuality. We pay our associates and suppliers promptly, and accommodate our team’s commitments to balance work and home life
• Person-centred: we go above and beyond legal commitments for holiday and parental/compassionate benefits
• Craftsmanship: our work is well-founded, robust, reliable and follows industry conventions where they exist. We’re open to trying new things but we’ll always be honest with our clients about our skills, experience and talents
• Professionalism: we honour the moral commitment arising from work we deliver. If our outputs fall short of what we agreed, we aim to rectify things quickly. If requirements change, we will be flexible with and helpful to our clients
• Living wage: we’re committed to paying our staff, associates and contractors well above the Minimum Wage to help ensure they can enjoy a decent standard of living
• Honest marketing and sales: we prioritise transparency and clarity and never over-claim. We bid fairly for work and never denigrate our peers. We’re competitive and aim to make a profit
• Integrity: we won’t take on clients with whom we would be ashamed to be associated, or where we cannot sustain mutual respect
• Community: we volunteer a proportion of our staff time to help charities, friends and good causes with their digital projects and skills. We actively support open-source platforms like WordCampUK, WordPress and PHP, who we both use and financially contribute to
• Financial responsibility: we pay our corporate and personal taxes, and are prompt and transparent in filing the financial and corporate documentation required with HMRC and Companies House. Where we can, we aim to minimise our tax exposure to keep prices lower, but won’t use convoluted means to avoid tax. We favour self-financing steady growth over rapid investment-backed expansion, which aligns with our commitment to building a business that can sustainably support comfortable lifestyles for directors and employees