Sustainability
Our commitment to a sustainable future
Sustainability is the beating heart of Ancoram, and influences everything we say and do as a company
Our approach to sustainability
As a new practice, we are committed to achieving B Corp certification in 2026. Our business model is summed up in the graphic here - please note that we no longer provide technical accounting advice.
Each year we will publish an impact report with our annual accounts on our website. We expect to publish our first impact report in June 2025.
UN Sustainable Development Goals
The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted by the international community in 2015. The 17 SDGs are supported by around 200 targets and key performance indicators, so governments and stakeholders can assess global progress in meeting these goals.
We consider that Ancoram’s activities most directly support two SDGs:
SDG 8 Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all; and
SDG 12 Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.
In addition, Ancoram is committed to doing what we can to further 4 more goals:
SDG 5 Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls;
SDG 10 Reduce inequality within and among countries;
SDG 13 Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts; and
SDG 16 Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.
We are determining how best we can support these goals within our spheres, and will report to our advisory committee each quarter on our environmental, social and governance performance, as well as financial and operational performance.
Our five capitals
Our ‘capitals’ represent resources (or inputs) to our business model which are then consumed, used or developed to create outputs for our clients and other stakeholders.
As Ancoram is primarily a knowledge-based services business, we consider our five ‘capitals’ to be those here:
-
This relates to our people, their skills, talents, lived experiences, diversity, equity and inclusion, and how we harness our collective differences and values to deliver epic outcomes for our clients and stakeholders.
-
This refers to the relationship and impact we foster and experience with the people external to Ancoram – our local communities, underserved people, prospective colleagues, clients and target clients, suppliers, and other external stakeholders.
-
This encompasses the proprietary products and services we design and deliver to create competitive advantage for our clients and stakeholders. Specifically, the technical training we provide, our comment letters to standard-setters and regulators, the reports we create for our clients under consulting engagements.
-
This includes the environment Ancoram and our supply chain operate in. We consider our primary natural stakeholders to be biodiversity and ecosystems, the climate, land and water. Of the five capitals, we consider this to be the most challenging to measure and determine KPIs for, because we are presently unable to identify suppliers in the supply chain beyond those we enjoy a contractual relationship with. We commit to improving this area and believe the tsunami of sustainability reporting standards on the international stage will enable us to expand and enhance reporting in the short-term.
-
This the revenue we generate, the cash flows we receive and expend, the equity capital invested in our business and Ancoram’s profitability. We consider this the easiest of the five capitals to assess because we apply International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) endorsed for use in the UK. While we will be exempt from providing detailed profit or loss information by virtue of the Companies Act 2008, we have elected not to omit this data from our first integrated annual report in 2024.
Stakeholders
In addition to our capitals, we have identified material stakeholders whose perspectives and priorities we will consider in our strategic, tactical and operational decisions. These stakeholders can be categorised into six broad groups:
Employees: we’re committed to employee participation and will explore employee ownership in the future, subject to any legal requirements we need to comply with.
Clients: we believe that every business should be empowered to tell its story and so serving our clients sustainably is a critical priority to us.
Suppliers and lenders: we assess every significant supplier relationship to ensure that we support local business or organisations that are majority-owned or operated by people from an underserved community (including, but not limited to, women, LGBTQIA+ people, people from ethnic minorities, asylum seekers and refugees). If a significant supplier (prospective or current) cannot evidence a sufficient commitment to sustainability, we will not transact with that organisation unless our obligations towards other stakeholders (such as employee-owners or regulators) require us to do so.
Local communities: we are committed to serving our local communities and seeing them prosper. We have committed to investing 12.5% of our revenue (after deduction of VAT) into local charities that directly help underserved people in Berkshire, London and the Thames Valley.
Natural environment: we declare the planet faces a climate emergency and commit to reducing our footprint on the natural environment. We consider the impact of our activities on the climate, biodiversity, land and water usage, and the circular economy, in our decision-making (‘inside-out’ approach). We also consider the impact of climate change, the transition to a sustainable economy, and other factors arising from the changing natural environment on our own activities (‘outside-in’ approach). We do not believe it is appropriate to purchase carbon offset credits without critically reviewing and reducing our business-as-usual footprint first.
Regulators: we are committed to acting with integrity in all we do, and welcome the views of our regulators as we seek to serve our stakeholders. We consider our most critical stakeholders in this category to include the UK Government, His Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC), the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), and B Lab UK. We are also a member of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), allowing us to benefit from a wealth of collective experience from other entrepreneurs.
We have mapped our sustainability priorities to the different perspectives of our stakeholders in the graphic below:
Our business model and strategy
Ancoram believes that every business should be empowered to tell its story, in sustainability terms as well as financial. However, we recognise that many organisations do not yet collect data on environmental, social or governance matters (or place this information in the public domain) and so our ultimate ambition is to democratise access to sustainability data.
Our services are focused on simplifying sustain abilility and helping businesses position ESG for competitive advantage. For further details, please visit our Services page. We also partner with similar organisations and consultants where we can provide a cohesive value proposition.
The success of our business activities is affected by key risks, external trends and developments in the markets we operate in, and the way we are governed. Further information on our governance can be accessed here.
We have formulated a provisional strategy for Ancoram, our ‘Vision 2030’, which comprises 4 key programmes. Each programme will have a set of objectives against which we will measure and report our key results, furthering outcomes for the planet and its people:
Quality of reporting: our reason for being is to empower businesses to tell their story, in both financial and sustainability terms. We actively seek to influence the requirements established by standard-setters such as the IASB and ISSB to provide the rich perspectives of our various stakeholders. We work with our clients to achieve not only regulatory compliance, but to embed high quality reporting into their decision-making processes. We are constantly scanning the reporting horizon to identify new tools, standards and methodologies to enhance the quality of reporting.
Quality of life: we seek to provide our employee-owners with a comprehensive compensation package and collaborative culture which will promote equity, diversity and inclusion, create positive engagement and foster economic empowerment. As we do not yet have any employees other than our director, Tim Dee-McCullough, we will work on this programme with our advisory council ahead of advertising any future roles.
Quality of service: we want to go above and beyond for our clients. We measure our clients’ net promotor score as the primary indicator of the quality of service we provide. We believe that profitability and capital invested in innovation are additional indicators providing meaningful insight into the quality we provide and create for our clients.
Prospering planet, prospering people: anything we do is pointless unless we’re actively working for the benefit of our planet and our communities. We commit to reducing our carbon and environmental footprint while enhancing our social impact. We are committed to fostering economic empowerment and see regulatory compliance not as a burden, but as a means to competitive advantage.
Transparency in our policies
The following policies came into effect on 10 March 2025:
The following policies are under development and will be added in the near future:
Ethical Marketing Policy
Human Rights Policy
Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) Policy
Lobbying Policy
Stakeholder Governance and Assessment Policy
Sustainable and Ethical Procurement Policy