How we’re creating a better future for students

Our social impact strategy focuses on three key pillars to ensure we are working across every area of our business to improve the lives of students.

People

We foster an open and inclusive culture and use our platform to drive equality and opportunity.

To truly empower students to thrive, we must stand up for the world they live in. We’re proud of our culture at Student Beans and measure our progress using a net promoter score as well as other tracking tools.

We were also recently ranked 11th Best Workplace for Tech and 16th Best Workplace for Women in the Great Place to Work awards. At the same time, we know that there are still barriers for many people in our society and so we are taking action to ensure we attract and retain the diverse talent we need.

We are constantly evaluating our work in this area and look forward to sharing more about our work in this area in the coming months.

Apprenticeships

We’re proud to have launched a new partnership with Multiverse, an apprenticeships provider aiming to increase diversity in the tech space. Multiverse recruits up-and-coming talent from a wide range of backgrounds, such as young people looking to kick-start their careers, tech returners and career changers. Across its apprenticeship programme, 53% are from ethnic minority backgrounds, 52% are women and 36% meet their indicators of socio-economic disadvantage.

We will be taking in 16 apprentices in our first cohort in 2022.

Supporting Entrepreneurs

As a founder-led business we are passionate about supporting student entrepreneurs to make their ideas a reality. We’re particularly interested in supporting students who have faced historical barriers in starting their own businesses.

If you think you fit this description and are interested in seeing how Student Beans can help promote your business to students please contact us.

Students

We support current and aspiring students to get ahead in life and reach their potential through access to support, advice and practical tools.

Opportunities for ALL students

We believe that all students should have the same opportunities regardless of background however we also know this simply isn’t the case. That’s why we are pleased to be working with our charity partners, the 93% Foundation and 1 Million Mentors to ensure all students can thrive.

The 93% Foundation

93percent.club

The 93% Foundation was set up to tackle the state-private education divide and to level the playing field for disadvantaged students.

Over 45 clubs have been set up across the country so far reaching 10,000 students and, we are committed to supporting these to grow and to help close the opportunity gap for students around the UK.

Our partnership will see us work together in 3 key areas:

Upskilling The 93% Foundation team through skills-sharing workshops.
Acting as a campaign partner to help spread key messages and reach more students.
Sharing our insights about students and collaborating on reports.

One Million Mentors

onemillionmentors.org.uk

Young people are facing some of the biggest challenges and worst economic prospects for generations. We’re working with One Million Mentors to ensure young people don’t get left behind and are equipped with the skills and confidence to reach their potential. We believe, like One Million Mentors, that mentoring can be a powerful tool to achieve your aims and we’re delighted to be working together with them to promote mentoring to more students.

How we’ll work together:

Our employees will begin mentoring young people through One Million Mentors and we’re aiming to contribute more than 1000 mentoring hours over the next year.
We’ll use our voice with students to promote the benefits of mentoring and aim to work with One Million Mentors to sign up hundreds of new mentees, all working to improve their skills and confidence.

Planet

We work to map our climate impacts and promote more sustainable lifestyles through our work with brands.

Understanding our impacts

We have committed to playing our part in contributing to climate action by signing up to the SME Climate Commitment and the UN Race to Zero campaign. Over the course of 2022 we will be using the SME Climate Hub’s collection of tools to report on our progress.

We have committed to the following science-based targets:

Halve our greenhouse gas emissions as a minimum before 2030
Achieve net zero emissions as a minimum before 2030
Disclose our progress on a yearly basis

Showcasing positive brands

We know from research gathered by our own Insights team that life at university brings many We know that many students want to purchase from brands that are demonstrating advances in sustainability. Through our Insights Reports and content we share with brands we communicate student and Gen Z views about how they want brands to act in relation to key topics like sustainability, inclusion and ethics.

As we continue to develop our social impact programme we’re looking forward to collaborating with brands who share our values.

Social Impact News