Earth Day was founded in 1970, and is an annual reminder to shift our focus to protecting the beautiful planet that we call home. It is a day to focus on educating others about environmental issues, to help raise awareness of pollution, renewable energy, and ways that people can take steps to be greener.

Earth Day – Invest in Our Planet: Positive-Sum Growth

This year, the theme of Earth Day is ‘Invest in our Planet’, and at Esker, we believe in doing just that. In fact, our aim is also to enable other organisations to do the same. Our customers, employees and partners share our convictions: a company’s development must have a beneficial impact on its entire ecosystem, society and the environment. That’s what we call positive-sum growth.

We believe that future business growth depends on environmental sustainability. Esker provides organisations with the tools to achieve real environmental results, such as:

• Less paper used in day-to-day activities, helping to save trees and reduce wasteful practices
• Less equipment needed to support manual operations, promoting long-term sustainability
• Less carbon by using cloud computing, which has shown to reduce emissions by up to 93%¹

“Esker builds innovative and responsible solutions that have a positive impact on society and the people within it, and enable our customers to improve their own ESG performance.”

Jean-Michel Bérard, CEO | Esker

Reducing Esker’s Environmental Footprint

Esker is also strongly committed to reducing the environmental footprint our own business activities.
In 2018 in France, where our Lyon Head Office is based, Esker has established processes for determining its carbon emissions, and has since extended these to all of its worldwide subsidiaries.

You can read more about this in our Impact Report

Furthermore, in 2022, Esker was recognised by both EcoVadis and Gaïa Index for its CSR leadership.

Globally, we have many initiatives to reduce our environmental footprint.

• Replanting: a wide variety of tree species is one of the pillars of the strategy to remove carbon emissions from Earth’s atmosphere and protect biodiversity. With Esker’s support, Reforest’Action, a non-profit organisation engaging in a unique approach they call “crowdplanting”, more than 19,250 trees have been planted in India, Haiti and Tanzania since 2019.
• Data Centres & Energy Efficiency: Esker chooses environmentally responsible vendors whenever possible. For example, all new Esker customers are hosted by default on Microsoft Azure, which uses energy from renewable resources for a significant portion of its data centres, and bases its billing model on server resource usage, thereby encouraging moderation.
• Responsible Product Development: Esker ensures that its R&D teams are attentive to the digital footprint of software operations by building optimised services and energy efficiency into its solutions. Esker also conducts regular internal conferences on the challenges of digital sobriety, led by the founder of GreenIT.fr.
• Life Cycle of IT Equipment: Esker strives to extend the lifecycle of company-owned IT equipment and electronic devices as much as possible, through in-house maintenance, vendor support, or employee buy-back programmes in exchange for donations to charities of their choosing.
• Waste Recycling: We have waste recycling at our mail production facilities, and within all subsidiary offices. In addition, 100% of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) in recycled.
• Mobility & Business Travel: To encourage the use of low-carbon modes of transport, Esker offers a variety of incentives: electric car fleets, bike and scooter parking, mileage reimbursement for bicycle use, and public transport compensation.

You can read more about our environmental efforts on our website.

Locally, here in the UK, one of our current focuses is on our Esker goodies. We are trying to source sustainable giveaway items, such as our metal water bottles, recycled cork pens, compostable and all natural ingredient jellybean pouches, recycled paper notebooks and sustainable cotton canvas bags. We also have recycling points around our offices, and electric car charging points on-site.

We can, and must, all play our part to protect our beautiful world. It’s the only one we have. For us, and for future generations.

¹ The carbon benefits of cloud computing: A study on the Microsoft Cloud in partnership with WSP. 2020. Microsoft.

Amy Rees

As Digital Marketing Administrator at Esker Northern Europe, Amy spends her time working on the website, writing and publishing blogs and social media content, and publishing collateral. She has been part of the Esker family since 2014.

Read more insights from Amy Rees

Earth Day was founded in 1970 and is an annual time to shift our focus to protecting our beautiful planet we call home. It is a day to focus on educating others about environmental issues, to help raise awareness of pollution, renewable energy, and ways that people can take steps to be greener.

Esker is always ready to promote Earth Day, because reducing waste and paper use within businesses is something we are passionate about.

While Esker’s solutions are used to drive added value creation within finance and customer service functions, their benefits expand beyond the doors of the company itself — giving new meaning to jobs, improving strategic relationships, and promoting environmental sustainability. We call this positive-sum-growth.

Esker is proud to offer digital solutions that help to improve local and global environmental health by helping to reduce equipment, paper, and ultimately, carbon expelled into the atmosphere. Actively taking steps to look after the planet is crucial, and today is a great time to consider what you can do to help – both in business and on a personal level.

In addition, Esker was recently awarded a platinum medal for ESG performance by Ecovadis due to our own daily commitment to implementing measures and results to better our own ESG impact, including the environment. This is definitely something to celebrate!

EcoVadis evaluates the quality of a company’s ESG performance through its policies, implementation measures and results, on four themes: Environment, Social & Human Rights, Ethics, Responsible Purchasing. With a score of 74/100, Esker is in the top 1% of all companies assessed by Ecovadis.

Within our offices, we are all playing our part in protecting our environment. For example,

Waste Recovery: Esker’s cloud platform has helped businesses around the world to automate nearly 3 billion sheets of paper. We encourage recycling at our office sites such as paper/cardboard, batteries, plastics. We also promote the use of reusables; cups, shipping supplies and printer cartridges.

Promotion of Renewable Energies: 100% of Esker’s new customer environments are hosted in the Microsoft Azure Public Cloud in order to use a minimum of 60% renewable energy in accordance with the objectives announced by Microsoft.

Reduction of CO2 Emissions: To encourage employees to cycle to work we provide bike parks on our premises, as well as offering government bike discount schemes. Our fleet of company vehicles is gradually being replaced by hybrid or electric vehicles with charging points on-site.

To find out more about Esker’s ESG Strategy, visit https://www.esker.co.uk/company/corporate-social-responsibility/

Amy Rees

As Digital Marketing Administrator at Esker Northern Europe, Amy spends her time working on the website, writing and publishing blogs and social media content, and publishing collateral. She has been part of the Esker family since 2014.

Read more insights from Amy Rees

Committed to environmental sustainability
The ISO 14001 international standard demonstrates Esker’s long-term commitment to environmental protection by establishing the principles of an effective management system that follows environmental best practices. The principle of continuous improvement is inherent to this standard and echoes the Agile methodology adopted by Esker in 2011.

Esker’s environmental approach, initiated by company management and actively supported by employees, is, above all else, an opportunity to propose a more ethical way of operating — increasingly requested by customers, employees, partners and investors.

Reducing environmental footprint
By automating business and document processes, Esker helps companies significantly reduce their paper, water and energy use. Esker has also implemented a number of actions within the company to limit its own environmental impact, including:

• Selecting data centre suppliers committed to sustainable development (e.g., SynAAps, Microsoft Azure)

• Reducing energy consumption including the use of less energy-intensive IT equipment, generalised LED lighting and presence detectors, and data migration from multiple servers to a shared SaaS platform

• Extending the lifespan of IT equipment with the possibility for employees to buy back company IT equipment in return for a charitable donation

• Favouring eco-friendly modes of transportation, with trains preferred over plane for business trips; additional measures put in place include: secure bicycle parking adapted for electric bicycles, automobile fleet that includes hybrid and electric cars, office scooter storage, showers and locker rooms for those who bike to work, etc.

• Raising employee awareness about recycling and implementing measures to facilitate recycling, including selective sorting bins, workshops on recycling best practices, zero-waste concept; conferences on software eco-design, regular email inbox purges, software development with a strong focus on solution efficiency and low energy consumption

“The ISO 14001 certification validates Esker’s active commitment to the environmental cause. The audit revealed many strengths within its organisation, including the ability to mobilise its employees, as well as its long-term dedication to the environment.” Extract from the closing meeting conducted by Catherine Farcot, Audit Manager, LRQA France.

“We’re very proud and encouraged that our efforts have been rewarded with the ISO 14001 certification and EcoVadis gold medal,” said Jean-Michel Bérard, CEO at Esker. “We strongly believe in a positive-sum economic growth, which is part of a long-term ethical perspective and integrates ecological and social constraints.”

Esker will undergo an annual control audit to validate its long-term ISO 14001 compliance and is considering certifying other subsidiaries. The company is also evaluated annually by EcoVadis for its CSR performance, and is striving for the platinum medal in 2021.

For more information, please visit Esker’s CSR webpage

Read full press release here.

Esker UK

Unlocking Positive-Sum Growth with AI-Driven Business Solutions for P2P & O2C Cycles

Read more insights from Esker UK

Businesses too need to step up to the mark. Many of us may be making more effort to help the planet whilst at home, but the workplace also needs to be a place where environment saving measures are implemented, and where employees are encouraged to support global corporate efforts.

If we are going to support the rescue of our planet for future generations, everyone needs to play their part; personally, and corporately.

Esker is no exception. The three pillars of Esker’s Corporate Social Responsibility policy include Environmental Dedication, Education & Training and Community & Development.

“We are deeply committed to business transformation at Esker. Our goal is to provide innovative and responsible solutions that have a positive impact on the company and its employees. Environmental protection, education and local territory development are just some of the key issues that Eskerians truly care about.”
Jean-Michel Bérard | CEO | Esker

Esker has been awarded a silver medal by Ecovadis for its CSR rating, and is continually striving to improve further.

Esker’s plan to help protect the environment covers three core areas:

First, waste recovery.

Esker’s cloud platform has helped businesses around the world to automate nearly 3 billion sheets of paper. Our offices around the world recycle everything possible including paper/cardboard, batteries, plastics. We promote reusables, for example, cups, shipping supplies and printer cartridges.

Second, promotion of renewable energy

100% of Esker’s new customer environments are hosted in the Microsoft Azure Public Cloud in order to use a minimum of 60% renewable energy in accordance with the objectives announced by Microsoft.

Third, reduction of CO2 emissions

To encourage employees to cycle to work we provide bike parks on our premises, as well as offering government bike discount schemes. Our fleet of company vehicles is gradually being replaced by hybrid or electric vehicles with charging points on-site.

Other local examples include moving to environmentally friendly cleaning products, going retro by using glass beakers and ditching plastics cups.

Only if we act immediately, decisively, globally and individually, can we pull our planet back from the brink. We need to make changes now. We have everything to gain and everything to lose.

Esker UK

Unlocking Positive-Sum Growth with AI-Driven Business Solutions for P2P & O2C Cycles

Read more insights from Esker UK