At Learnlight our mission is to build a brighter, more sustainable future together. As a mature People-Powered EdTech company, we do this primarily by providing sustainable training programs, driven by people and powered by technology, that build mutual understanding between those with different languages, cultures and beliefs.
We believe it’s equally important to couple the core of our services with a long-term, sustainable business approach and like-minded partners and customers. This helps safeguard our people, communities and planet. And because this is so important to us, as part of our 16-year anniversary, we wanted to show the world how we achieve it through our very own ecosystem (made up of our incredible team, trainers, customers and partners).
Our Environmental Initiatives
With our goal to operate sustainably, we launched our Environmental Policy and Practices back in 2017, measuring our carbon footprint and creating internal awareness channels to educate our global team around environmental consciousness.
Since then, our sustainability initiatives have grown to include:
- Travel reduction through the active and innovative promotion of virtual services, as well as by operating in virtual teams, using virtual working practices.
- Paper reduction by transitioning from printed books to digital courseware, and by moving towards a digital document management system.
- Waste reduction by encouraging recycling, particularly in the use of paper and electronic equipment, and energy efficient practices.
- Supply purchasing from reputable sources that enforce policies and practices like ours, and environmentally sensitive waste disposition.
Our Environmental Achievements
In 2017 we earned the ISO 14001 certification for Environmental Management (renewed in 2020) after measuring environmental performance against business practices like energy use, transport planning, material reuse, renewable energy generation and waste creation.
Indeed, within just two years of launching our Policy we were consuming 65% less paper, up to 30% less electricity, and 42% less CO2 for travel. By 2020 we were completely paper free and by 2021 we became a fully remote organization reducing our carbon footprint even further. In 2022, this earned us our Gold EcoVadis Medal of sustainability.
To further our efforts, in early 2022 we reduced our carbon footprint to just 144 tCO2e by investing in the Gyapa Efficient Cookstove Project, providing access to clean and efficient cookstoves and employment opportunities for locals manufacturing them. We also started a partnership with Just One Tree to plant trees around the world. This partnership helped start over 700 saplings in 2022, planted across countries such as Madagascar, Haiti, Brazil and Kenya. It estimates 200 tons of absorbed carbon dioxide over the next 25 years. Efforts like these earned us our Carbon Neutral Company Certification in 2022.
Our Responsibility to Customers
We are committed to helping clients transition to more sustainable training practices. We enable them to adopt a service that’s run sustainably, and which includes environmentally friendly training methods thanks to our award-winning platform and virtual training sessions.
This saves tons of carbon emissions each year by reducing learner and trainer travel and reducing paper and ink waste through the use of digital learning materials.
Our ongoing learner outcome survey indicates this is helping us deliver excellence:
- 95% of our learners to date strongly agree that our training is personalized and interesting
- 86% of them agree or strongly agree that our platform is user-friendly and intuitive
- 99% would recommend their training experience to others with a 9-10/10 score
We are also currently undertaking research exploring employee best practices around collaborating across borders, to make virtual (cost-effective) global workplaces as efficient and effective as possible. Participate in the survey here today!
Striving for More
Annually, as an organization, we select and invest in a global charity of choice, to support communities in need. We also recently renewed our Gold EcoVadis Medal Award with an ‘advanced’ rating for Environment and Human Right and an ‘outstanding’ rating for Ethics.
In March Learnlight proudly joined the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), reaffirming our commitment to align our operations with UNGC’s 10 principles on Human Rights, Labor, Environment, and Anti-Corruption. We aim to complete their assessment by March 2024.
Be it by planting more trees, supporting more organizations with paperless and commute-free training, or donating part of our revenue to communities in need (thanks to our partners’ contributions), we aspire to continue attracting, supporting and inspiring like-minded partners, clients and learners through these efforts.
