Working towards our sustainable future
Our purpose as an organisation is to work with charities and donors, across sectors and across borders, to accelerate progress in society towards a fair and sustainable future for all. This means the sustainability of our own organisation, and that of
the people and communities we serve, is at the heart of everything we do.
We’re clear in our commitments to the environment, and to society, and we’re making progress. But we recognise and understand that this is
the beginning of our journey and there’s more for us to do.
At CAF, we have made a commitment to achieve net-zero by 2050 across all our UK operations. This includes those within our wholly owned subsidiary, CAF Bank.
The first step in realising this commitment is for us to understand our own
organisational emissions so that we can take meaningful action to reduce them. Building on a previous emissions review, we are in the process of measuring our Scope 1 and 2 emissions that will act as a baseline for our future work in this area.
Informed by this analysis, we will develop an action plan setting out how we make our own operations as sustainable as possible, before looking at how we can expand our measurements to include Scope 3 emissions in future years.
Examples of our sustainability progress so far
We have worked with our employee pension provider to ensure that our Default Fund (the default fund that employees' pension contributions go into) is now 98% ESG-aligned. Our London office prioritises our approach to sustainability, minimising our overall
footprint and helping us save money. This includes running on 100% renewable energy.
Similarly, we have recently renegotiated the energy contract for our Kings Hill office, so that by autumn 2025 it too will run on 100% renewable –
rising from 60% currently.
In addition, we have amended our supplier and procurement procedures to ensure ESG-considerations are included in both our selection of new suppliers and ongoing management of existing partners.
CAF Bank
CAF Bank provides transactional banking services and lending to charities and social purpose enterprises across the UK. At the Bank, we operate a strict criteria that all lending activity must have a social purpose and, therefore, we do not provide finance
to companies whose primary business involves fossil fuel extraction, processing or sale; and/or traditional petrol or diesel vehicle manufacturing.
CAF Bank reviews its lending criteria on a regular basis to ensure these standards
are upheld. We also recognise the risks that environmental change poses to our business and to the work of the charities and communities we support. We have integrated physical and transition risks associated with climate change into CAF Bank’s
enterprise risk management framework.
Our approach to investments
CAF Bank maintains a conservative portfolio of treasury investments that is governed by the Bank’s internal Treasury Policy. This policy details what we will and won’t invest in, as well as detailing the ESG considerations that apply when
making investment decisions.
CAF Bank does not hold any treasury investments in energy producers, military arms producers, alcohol, or tobacco manufacturers, and as a point of policy has no appetite for making treasury investments
in companies whose primary business involves fossil fuel extraction, processing or sale, or traditional petrol or diesel vehicle manufacturing.
CAF Bank’s treasury portfolio is subject to screening through the publicly available
Sustainalytics ESG risk-rating tool. This is updated by CAF Bank’s Head of Sustainability on a quarterly basis and subject to governance review.
