Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate Social Responsibility is firmly embedded within our culture at Vaultex.

We believe it’s vital to highlight the importance of our companywide actions, and to help people understand how they can contribute. That’s why we have a specialised CSR team who are dedicated to working with our people to help Vaultex do more; whether it’s supporting our people, using less resources, giving back to the local community or nurturing future talent.

Built on 5 E’s, our CSR strategy is designed to influence the areas of society we impact the most: Ethics, Environment, Employability, Enterprise and Engagement.

In 2022 Vaultex’s CSR strategy was recognised with both a CSR-A Gold Accreditation and an International CSR Excellence Gold Award.

Ethics forms the backbone of our CSR strategy. Very simply, we go beyond what is expected of us both at work and in our communities to do the right thing.

Our people’s wellbeing is fundamental to Vaultex and we offer a range of support for both mental and physical wellbeing. All of our managers are trained to support colleagues through mental wellbeing challenges and we have qualified mental health first aiders in every site. We offer an employee assistance programme that’s available to all and provides access to counselling and extensive support resources including an NHS approved wellbeing app.

Back in 2017 we launched our Speak Up campaign, encouraging our people to come forward and talk about their experiences with mental health to help break the stigma surrounding it. In 2020 we expanded Speak Up to include anything that can impact wellbeing and since then our people have come forward to speak about their experiences with domestic abuse, disability, racism, coming out and more.

During lockdown we launched a domestic abuse protection package and we also have a range of support resources for people going though fertility treatment or menopause.

We’ve also run a variety of campaigns to promote physical health including inter-site sporting events, VaulteXercise and Vaultrek which saw Vaultex collectively walk over 36million steps for charity. Exercise routines and healthy recipes are available through our online wellbeing centre, alongside a wide range of wellbeing resources including financial advice.

Vaultex has worked hard to develop initiatives both internally and industry wide to reduce any negative impact on our environment.

Since 2018 we’ve reduced our energy consumption by over 25%, increased recycling rates from 68% to over 80% and maintained a zero to landfill approach for all IT & telephony waste. We’ve also removed plastic cups from water dispensers and hot drink machines across our estate.

In 2019 we took it up a gear by launching our Green Path campaign – an initiative that encourages Vaultex employees to produce innovative ways to help us become a more environmentally friendly business. Over 60 ideas have been put forward to date and our dedicated Green Path team work hard to bring these ideas to life. Many ideas have now been implemented company wide and on 22nd  February 2022, our Green Path campaign was recognised as ‘Best Currency Innovation’ at the International Association of Currency Affairs awards. Here’s just a few examples of the ideas we’ve implemented so far:

  • Switching to cloth bags for internal coin – saving 3.75 tons of plastic per year
  • Replacing plastic seals with padlocks for cashier workstations – saving 2.6 tons of plastic per year
  • Utilising scan to file in several process saving 25,000 sheets of paper per year
  • Reducing the size of coin sachets – saving 0.65 tons of plastic per year

In 2021 Vaultex signed the UK Cash Industry Environmental Charter. Aiming to unite its members in a commitment to work collaboratively across the industry, the charters end goal is to drive significant change and contribute to the achievement of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

In 2016 Vaultex launched its Higher Level Apprentice (HLA) scheme in partnership with Coventry University. The scheme couples a chartered accredited degree with the invaluable experience of working in a fast-paced, real-time industry environment and enables us to take an active role in moulding the future talent of the cash industry.

We also provide internal development opportunities through VaultExcel – a programme with the objective of identifying employees with valuable, scalable skills, and supporting them in their promotional aims. Since its launch in 2020, 38% of participants are now working at a higher grade than before they joined the programme.

Vaultex work in partnership with many organisations to offer employability activities in our local communities. Over 10,000 people were supported via our employability workshops in the last year – from students and graduates to people who are unemployed or facing redundancy. Our workshops include CV Writing, Mock Interviews and Interviewing Skills and are individually tailored to meet audience needs – with the main goal of ensuring recipients can transfer those skills to jobs at Vaultex or elsewhere.

We champion equity over equality. That’s why we work closely with the UK Social Mobility foundation to find placements for those from disadvantaged backgrounds and with the WEA to help adults who have been long term unemployed or sick, back into work. Our recently founded partnership with Migrant Leaders is enabling two-way mentorship between people in social mobility hotspots and members of our senior leadership team.

It’s not just about giving people the skills to get a job, we want to ignite a passion in people to start a career. People from across the business take part in webinars for students and graduates that detail different areas and career opportunities within Vaultex and the Cash Industry. Our women in Tech have been encouraging future generations of women in STEM through talks and Q&A sessions for students and running coding workshops to inspire youngsters to get involved since 2019.

One obligation of Vaultex’s CSR strategy is to contribute to the economies we operate in.

In correspondence with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, we aim to work with different stakeholders within our communities whilst maintaining and enhancing our ethical conduct. Inside of our operation, this means providing high levels of customer service and ensuring the availability of cash in an ethically sound manner. On a wider scale, it’s our duty to promote economic growth and opportunities for work within the cash industry, whilst also fighting to sustain equity and equality.

Our Supply Chain Programme reinforces our stance on corporate, collective responsibility. The Programme details our behavioural expectations from prospective third-party suppliers, and is designed to ensure the goods, services and partners we utilise share Vaultex’s principles.

Transparency is a vital component we look for in prospective partners, but also key in our approach when trying to win new business. As a result, CSR is a significant part of that process – as it allows us to transfer our values across the industry and provide stakeholders with visibility of our behaviours. This increases the viability of our labelled values, but more importantly, we believe it is the best way to drive industry-wide change. We want to share our CSR expertise to promote good practice and encourage similar social, economic, and environmental attitudes across the cash industry.

Through our ‘Everyone Counts’ diversity and inclusion strategy we encourage everyone to bring their whole selves to work and implement a zero tolerance approach to discrimination of any kind. More than that we want to educate our people and actively encourage them to educate each other about things that are important to them.

We’ve successfully hosted several open forum discussions, giving our people a safe space to ask questions and educate each other on sensitive topics from Race to LGBTQ+. These discussions are used to drive meaningful change within Vaultex and have led to the creation of our Diversity Network and several educational pieces like our recent ‘Don’t Assume, Just Ask’ microaggression awareness campaign.

Each year we produce a diversity calendar highlighting opportunities to celebrate each other’s unique differences. While we run centrally driven events each year, we actively encourage our people to raise awareness of the things they care about. From celebrating Eid to raising awareness (and funds!) for prostate cancer – our diversity calendar facilitates a huge variety of activities and celebrations across all our sites.

We believe it is important to give back to our local communities while enabling people to support the causes close to their hearts. Every employee is entitled to 7 hours of paid volunteering each year which they can use at their discretion or through organised company volunteering days. We also match the funds our people raise for charity inside and outside of work.

Accreditations & Awards

Investors in People Gold accredited since 2011

CSR-A Gold accredited since 2022

Living Wage Foundation accredited since 2016

International CSR Excellence Gold Award 2022

Excellence in Currency Awards, Best New Currency Innovation 2022

Partnerships & Pledges

If you have any queries about our CSR programme, or would like to discuss any opportunities, please contact: csr@vaultexuk.com