Environmental, Social, and Governance Policy The Key to Empowering Humanity
Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) is core to ARCOS for many reasons. It’s a driver of growth, innovation, and community. It’s critical in order to sustain natural resources and all living things on this planet, including us.
ESG drives the way we fulfill our responsibility to our stakeholders.
ARCOS’s commitment to ESG is key to our mission of empowering humanity, not only by ensuring reliable access to critical infrastructure, but also by doing so in a sustainable, conscientious, and ethical manner.
Our efforts are governed by a committee of employees, and we encourage all stakeholders to engage with us in these initiatives. These stakeholders not only include the executive leadership team and board, but also our customers, local communities, and the ARCOS employees. To that end, it is the committee’s goal to enshrine our initiatives in a policy to hold the company accountable.
Data Privacy and Security
Utilities make up the critical infrastructure of this country. As a provider of software and solutions to that industry, we are dedicated to keeping their information secure with the utmost care and concern. We understand and take seriously that protecting this data is essential to provide a safe, secure, and stable environment in which our customers, employees, and communities can flourish. To that end, we perform diligent oversight in the responsible collection and retention of data.
Additionally, we encourage our teams to develop skills and continually increase knowledge to protect our stakeholders. In 2022, ARCOS implemented an online platform, that offers learning and teaching opportunities. We give all employees access to the platform and conduct continuous internal training. This helps our team stay up to speed on the latest cybersecurity compliance approaches and enhance other related skills to support our governance priorities.
Business Ethics and Compliance
As part of its ESG initiative, ARCOS requires that employees, directors and executives partake in bi-annual training on important governance topics like ethical business conduct, data privacy, information security, anti-corruption, anti-harassment, and anti-retaliation policy. The Employee Code of Conduct is reviewed and acknowledged after each round of training.
Our ESG governance policies support our commitment to ethical business practices, transparency, and fairness in our dealings. Our Supplier Code of Conduct carries these same principles to our supply chain. Suppliers, contractors and vendors are informed about our governance expectations when choosing to work with ARCOS.
Environmental Priorities
ARCOS works to protect and minimize our impact on the planet. Our CEO has signed a Climate Pledge with investor group Vista Equity Partners for ARCOS to act responsibly and lessen our impact on the planet. In order to fulfil this pledge, we’ve established foundational and transparent efforts to educate our employees, community, and customers.
A key responsibility of the ESG committee is to annually measure our organization’s Greenhouse Gas emissions. Our ultimate goal is to reduce carbon emissions 50% by 2030.
We are taking a number of steps to meet these objectives. For example, in 2022, ARCOS moved our headquarters to a smaller space outfitted with energy efficient, motion sensor-activated lighting and water. Since 2020 we’ve downsized our office footprint from three locations to one. As ARCOS continues to explore and invest in activities that will further reduce our Greenhouse Gas emissions, the company is committed to investing in carbon credits to offset our residual emissions each year.
Furthermore, ARCOS is also driving environmental action around the following:
- Lobby for waste management and other environmentally friendly practices within our office footprint.
- Establish an internship for environmental studies.
- Continue to improve data collection capabilities to further enhance the accuracy of Greenhouse Gas emissions measurement.
- Perform a climate risk assessment.
Once we have accomplished these measures, ARCOS plans to act as a steward for the community and to support others outside of our organization in meeting their own environmental initiatives.
Diversity Equity and Inclusion
In order to support ARCOS’s efforts in providing cutting-edge technology to our clients, ARCOS is committed to fostering a culture of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) within our employee base. Our team represents a collective sum of the individual differences, innovation, knowledge, life experiences, self-expression, talent and unique capabilities where the inclusion of ideas from various backgrounds and perspectives means we can confidently say that we are doing everything we can to empower the people that power the world.
Long before ARCOS decided to formalize our ESG initiatives, we were already taking steps to promote fair treatment and full participation of all people. We were especially conscious of serving groups who have historically been underrepresented or subject to discrimination on the basis of identity or disability. We’ve memorialized our efforts with a formal Diversity Equity Inclusion & Belonging (DEIB) Policy that is circulated to our employees.
Our Human Resources team consistently carries out this charge by:
- Posting and recruiting on diverse job boards.
- Securing diversity in our leadership and board.
- Tracking salaries to identify any wage disparities.
- Encouraging the use of preferred pronouns for all individuals.
Employee Wellbeing
It is important for our employees to feel empowered and able to maintain emotional and physical wellbeing. As a responsible organization, we take this obligation seriously. We believe such efforts are necessary to foster an environment where all employees are healthy and experience positive results.
Some of the ways ARCOS supports our team in their wellbeing journeys are:
- Providing weekly mental wellness practices.
- Encouraging no meetings be scheduled on Wednesday afternoons.
- Offering flexible work schedules to ensure a healthy work life balance.
- Forming Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) to close the communication loop from contributor to leadership, and to help our employees feel heard.
Philanthropy
Charitable giving rounds out the ESG committee’s social focuses. We feel it’s important to contribute to the Fallen Lineman Foundation, a realm close to home for our organization and communities. We encourage employees to use their time off on Juneteenth to volunteer.
Despite all the efforts above, ARCOS realizes much more help is required for the underserved. We will continue to encourage employees to participate in giving back to our communities, and to organize pathways for them to do so.
Looking Forward
Achieving our ESG goals is a never-ending mission that we enthusiastically embrace as we strive for a better future. Our approach to ESG will evolve as we explore new opportunities that add value to all ARCOS stakeholders.
If you have ESG Questions, please contact us.