We compile this report every April, looking back at 12 months of outstanding contributions to the vitality and sustainability of our communities.
So, at the time of writing, we must also look forward to the new world into which we are all taking our first cautious steps.
While the mist is clearing a little right now and the future still uncertain, what we do know is that the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic will be both systemic and existential.
It will bring systemic changes to the way our economies operate and to how our customers – who touch nearly every industry and public service – run their businesses and organisations.
We are already seeing existential changes to the way we run our lives as we have been forced to withdraw into our homes,shielding from harm. Society and businesses are all operating inside new conventions and although we hope that some of the old normal will return, many things will not.
At Brother UK, we have been mobilising our teams and resources to keep the economy moving and our communities –be they geographic, business or internal – moving too. For us,it is the complete moment for “At your side”, which is one of the philosophical pillars of our culture.
We put a spade into the ground of community engagement long ago meaning that we’ve been able to pivot quickly to offer support both in the midst of the crisis and also to think how we can assist as recovery begins.
And while lots in the world will change, our ongoing commitment to these communities will not. A year from now the type of stories you find in these pages might be very different, but the characters and the narrative will be the same.
Brother UK is not alone in its mission. Our organisation is part of a global group which is working together to make a huge collective impact to all the world’s communities. We will remain committed to supporting the realisation of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and are pleased to update on more tangible progress against these in this report.
We live in an age where social and economic value are no longer separate entities. The pandemic has placed a renewed focus on compassion and the collective good, and so this recent business megatrend will survive the crisis.
Procurement decisions add ever greater weighting to a supplier’s ability to generate social returns, so businesses that simply pay lip service could well find themselves shut out of new opportunities. We have created a great platform to compete here, built on a bedrock of global citizenship established over many years, I am very proud of that.
As we look forward to 2021, we see a world that will need more support from business - more kindness, more energy and more collaboration. We’re ready to step forward.
‘At your side’,
