Fleet Mortgages sets out ESG policy and steps to be taken to achieve ambitions

01 March 2022

Fleet Mortgages, the buy-to-let specialist lender, has today (1st March 2022) outlined its new Environment, Social & Governance (ESG) Policy Statement, and the proactive steps it will take in order to achieve the progressive and measurable actions set out in it.

Fleet’s ESG policy has a number of central ambitions: to minimise the impact the business has on the environment, to make a positive contribution to all stakeholders including staff, customers, suppliers and those who live in and around Fleet, Hampshire, and to have fit-for-purpose, transparent governance structures in place to help run a business staff can be proud of.

Splitting its policy into its three constituent parts, Fleet has outlined the steps its staff and the business can take in order to meet those ambitions.

For the Environment, these include amongst others: reducing the amount of carbon emissions caused by travel by offering staff the option to work from home; reducing the amount of electricity used, printing, postage, stationery and waste disposal cost; recycling more and different types of waste; and offering Green mortgage products to advisers and their landlord customers.

In the Social element, Fleet has committed to: helping more members of staff obtain professional qualifications; supporting employees who wish to carry out voluntary work within their community or for a charitable organisation; filling vacancies, where possible, through apprenticeship schemes or staff-introduced candidates; integrating employee well-being into health and safety; and balancing teams in respect of gender diversity in all management groups.

Finally, in terms of Governance, Fleet is working towards a number of outcomes including (amongst others) having a diverse and healthy mix of Non-Executive and Executive Directors on the Board and the effective deployment of governance meetings.

Fleet has introduced measurable targets across all these areas and intend to measure progress regularly.

Jannie Vermeulen, Co-Founder & Chief Risk Officer at Fleet Mortgages, commented:

“One of our core values at Fleet is that ‘we run a business we can be proud to work for’. This has been a core value since inception and ESG offers us the opportunity to embrace this value in different ways. An opportunity to be mindful of the impact our business has on the environment.

“As one of the largest employers in Fleet it also means we want to make a positive contribution in our community, and we set the very highest standards in the way we conduct ourselves.

“Our ESG policy not only outlines what we want to achieve in these three areas but how we intend to go about it, how we measure our progress and the outcomes we ideally will get from that activity.

“This is not rocket science, everyone can make a contribution and lead from any chair. What we have done here is simply plotting a path to make meaningful contributions across the ESG piece.”