There is an increasing amount of pressure on companies to address Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and indeed CSR seems to be the acronym of the moment.

Our CSR policy

At Zibrant we have been looking at ourselves and our approach to this key area for some time. In early 2006 we formed a CSR committee and commissioned a staff questionnaire that elicited 96% response rate from our staff. From this we have been able to craft a robust CSR policy that has been genuinely shaped by the people it will affect most and has therefore gained an enormous amount of buy-in and acceptance.

Our CSR policy looks at three important area’s – People, Environment and Social Conscience and covers not only our internal practices, but also the impact of how we work with our corporate clients (in fact we have been asked to help shape many of their own internal policies), how we treat and work with suppliers and also gives information to staff about making their life outside of work more socially aware and responsible.

Without exception the policy has been universally welcomed and we would urge other companies to do the same. However, there are some tips that can be used to ensure a successful CSR stance –

• Gaining early buy-in is essential, ask your staff what they want and use this as the basis for your policy

• Keep ideas and initiatives fresh in people’s minds – publicise what you have done and the results of it (we set up a campaign to reduce energy consumption, not all of the activities were obvious) – though we did manage to reduce our energy usage by 41% year-on-year

• Make it fun and interesting – we used our industry contacts to bring chefs, a smoothie bar and masseurs into our offices during our Detox and wellness week

• Get creative, Zibrant created an award winning campaign by giving all our staff and clients little cuddly goats, they are encouraged to take pictures with them every month, the best picture wins a big cuddly goat and a live goat is sent to a family in the developing world through Oxfam Unwrapped

CSR initiatives

We have introduced many varied CSR initiatives to the Zibrant team including Fairtrade Fortnight, Detox Weeks and regular charity days. However, the pinnacle (pardon the pun), of our activities has been the 2007 Zibrant Three Peak Challenge……

Three Peak Challenge

70 intrepid staff, suppliers and clients raised in excess of £27,000 for four amazing charities; Lavender Trust (*** Cancer), Meeting Industry Meeting Needs, Oxfam Unwrapped and Mountain Rescue in the Zibrant Three Peak Charity Challenge.

Challengers set out to tackle the three highest mountains in England, Scotland and Wales in just 24 hours.

The climbers started the challenge from 8:40am on 20th September at Ben Nevis in Scotland, bizarrely this was also the same time it started raining heavily. The rain was to be a constant, if not welcome, companion for the duration of the challenge. However, this did nothing to dampen the spirit and the teams ascended and descended the mountain in record times despite the wet weather which by this point had been joined by high winds, sleet and hail.

After a slippy descent we jumped in our cars and headed to the beautiful Lake District, however the night had descended and our climb was to be in the pitch black (and rain), so we had no time to enjoy the scenery.

The weather was relentless throughout the event and on arrival at our third and final mountain Snowdon in Wales in the early morning of 21st September, the teams were greeted by wind gusting to 70mph and yet more persistent heavy rain but this didn’t diminish the challengers’ spirits as all eleven teams made their final ascent. 

After the last mountain teams headed to The Quay hotel for hot food and prize giving and a chance to reflect upon the last 24 hours. The Godalming Grafters won the ‘Zibrant commitment to sponsorship award’ as they raised over £5,000 for the beneficiaries and Team Trekkers were awarded ‘Zibrant spirit of the mountains’ for their morale, stamina and exceptionally fast challenge times!

Fay Sharpe our Sales & Marketing Director (and intrepid climber), said: “Despite the weather, all the teams were fantastic during the challenge and in their fundraising activities in the lead up to the event. Out of the eleven teams participating, all but one completed the challenge and five teams did so within the 24 hours – this is a huge achievement as typically only ten percent of challengers normally achieve this. We raised a fantastic sum for our beneficiaries and this event has really helped us demonstrate our ideologies of corporate social responsibility in a very tangible way. The terrible weather hasn’t put us off and we’re already coming up with ideas for the next challenge!”

The event was hosted as part of Zibrant’s 2007 corporate social responsibility programme and has really brought staff from the national offices together as well as cementing fantastic friendships and relationships between clients, sponsors, suppliers and our media partner Meeting and Incentive Travel Magazine.