Social Purpose
It’s a privilege to run The Sourcing Team. Of course, it’s hard work and it will always bring new challenges, business is never easy however, when you have a wonderful team, amazing clients and great supply partners it is a true pleasure!
Over our 22 years, we have been blessed to travel around the world, meeting and working with wonderful people from different cultures and we have the opportunity to make a difference both up and down the supply chain. We have been inspired by many and hope, in turn, inspired others along the way.
We are passionate about doing our bit to help make change happen, that means sharing our insights with our customers and supply partners – because together we can do our bit to drive positive change in the world of promotional products.
We believe it is every businesses responsibility to have a ‘responsible business’ approach. What we mean by this is understanding how your business impacts on the environment, communities and workers in your supply chain. This process requires you to assess your impacts – where you buy from, what materials you use and how those items are produced. By reviewing this carefully you can start to understand where you can drive change, what you can start to do differently and how you can share that thinking both up and down your own supply chain.
We don’t do business at any cost. We do business with like-minded people – both from our supply network and our clients, those who value our commitment to being ethical and sustainable in all that we do.
Business is nothing without the people who represent it. We have an amazing team of unique individuals who all bring something special to The Sourcing Team. We value them, and we nurture them, helping them to grow and flourish – we want our people to be themselves, feel valued and love what they do.
Giving Back:
We've made cakes, completed walks, runs, stopped drinking, adopted an elephant, panda and a goat, grown bamboo for koalas and planted trees in cities! We have supported girls education throughout the Commonwealth, supported Christmas parties for the elderly and donated prizes for all sorts of amazing fundraising and charity events.
We regularly sponsor our team, clients and supply partners in their own charitable challenges. Our team also have extra days leave each year for their own chosen volunteering.
And what’s more, we’ve done this consistently year on year throughout our 23 years in business. Being SME doesn’t stop us – we believe every business must understand their responsibility in providing social purpose, supporting communities and charitable organisations - because every little counts!
Ecologi
We are so pleased to have signed up to Ecologi. Ecologi have planted over 34 million trees and have over 1.4m certified tonnes C02 reduced to date. Tree planting is one of the best tools to tackle the climate crisis and keep temperatures from rising above 1.5c and that is what inspired us to sign up.
Find out more about the Ecologi projects we support here
Find out more about Ecologi here
Work for Good
We also work with an amazing organisation, the Work for Good platform to help us support causes close to our hearts around people and planet.
Find out more about Work for Good: https://youtu.be/pTK2F6gSG1o
The Work for Good platform enables businesses to build giving into their day to day work. Simple and effective, the platform enables commercial participation, donations that are hassle-free and inspires others to transform their business giving. This is in addition to our regular giving and support of charities close to our hearts. We have selected the following charities to support within the Work for Good platform, they all have a special connection for us.
Plan International
Plan International helps children gain access to education, clean water and healthcare. We decided to sponsor a girl in Asia as many of our textiles originate from that part of the world and we know first-hand how education can help girls in this region fulfil their potential and break the poverty cycle. As a woman-owned business, we are passionate about giving girls the opportunities they deserve and the Because I am a Girl campaign helps educate and empower girls across the world with campaigns on issues such as FMG, bullying and teenage pregnancy.
WaterAid
We all take fresh drinking water and clean sanitation for granted but over 844 million people worldwide don’t have clean water close to home and a staggering 2.3 billion people have no decent toilet - that’s 1 in 3 people on the planet. WaterAid is determined to change this within a generation – giving people access to a basic human right. Here in the UK there has been much focus on plastic waste from water bottles and we’ve seen an increase in the numbers of people buying and using our refillable water bottles instead. We thought, what better way to celebrate this reduction in plastic waste than by supporting WaterAid. So, for every bottle we sell we will make a donation to help others access clean water and good hygiene. So keep those orders coming through and you will be helping us to donate for every bottle sold!
The MicroLoan Foundation
The MicroLoan Foundation helps provide the poorest women in sub Saharan Africa with the tools and skills to work their way out of poverty. Of the 770 million people that live in poverty worldwide almost half live in this region and approximately 70% are women. The impacts of a microloan means that over 83% of loanees have all their children in education and 98% can afford to access medical treatment. We love that this charity empowers women to earn and save their own money and provide for their families through health and education opportunities. We donate to this charity as part of our annual giving plan.
Here is a video featuring Deborah Meaden showing her support for MicroLoan
www.microloanfoundation.org.uk
Cool Earth
Cool Earth is a UK based NGO that have currently saved 901,679 acres of rainforest along with protecting 216,402,960 trees and locking in 234,436,540 tonnes of CO2. This is a charity that helps local people who live in the rainforests to build better health, education and livelihoods to create resilient and empowered villages. Partner villages help shield 5 million acres of pristine rainforest. So a win for the planet and a win for the people! We think that’s pretty cool… so to help them continue their great work we will donate £25 every time we win a new platinum or platinum plus client- another win-win!
WEConnect
Supporting Women-Owned businesses – Our CEO is committed to helping diversity and inclusion, The Sourcing Team joined WEConnect International in 2011 and it has been truly inspirational for us as a business. As such Gill, our CEO, offered to volunteer her time to help drive the message and support other women-owned business and created the WBE Council with other amazing certified women to support the mission of WEConnect International.
Gill was also awarded Global Woman’s Business Enterprise of the Year in 2020, the first time it had been awarded to a member from the UK.
WBE2WBE Days – the council created the first European women business enterprise days – supported by the WEConnect Corporate members as host for the day and a wonderful way to bring business owners together to share, gain insights and build a community.
If you would like to find out more about charitable activities or you are looking for volunteers please do connect with our CEO, Gill Thorpe gillthorpe@sourcing.co.uk
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