Panathlon Foundation has Record Breaking Year

Special needs charity and EllisKnight International Charity Partner, the Panathlon Foundation, has reported a record-breaking year of participation.
Panathlon is a national charity which gives young people with disabilities and special educational needs every year the opportunity to take part in competitive sport. In 2021/22, a record 52,476 young people participated in Panathlon sporting competitions as face-to-face events made a roaring return to school calendars to blend with in-school and virtual programmes.
Last academic year, 33,197 pupils with disabilities and special needs took part in face-to-face competitions across England and Wales, supported by 5,013 specially trained Young Leaders.
Ellis Knight have championed the cause of Panathlon for over 18 months.

Coming Through the Pandemic
In a tough time for Penathlon during the pandemic, competitions had been wiped out the previous academic year by Covid-19. Although the pandemic continued to cause complications this year, especially when restrictions returned in January, they still managed to stage the highest number of competitions in the charity's 25-year history.
A Virtual Programme continued during restrictions. The programme was conceived at the start of the pandemic to allow schools to host internal competitions safely on-site for pupils with additional needs. Schools loved it so much they continued to engage after Covid restrictions were relaxed, and its visibility and impact grew, with 13,305 pupils participating in 2021/22.
In total, 2,078 schools across England and Wales took part in Panathlon activity across 758 events and activities in and out of schools.
Tony Waymouth, Chief Operating Officer at Penathlon, said: "To have broken our all-time participation records during the continuing uncertainty of the pandemic period is hugely satisfying for everyone at the charity who has worked so hard throughout it.
"For many school staff and pupils, Panathlon competitions have been their first opportunity to leave the school gates for nearly two years. The benefits go way beyond mere sporting provision, boosting mental and physical health, self-confidence, inclusion and social skills and having a ripple effect across academic attainment. We followed the mantra of meeting all the children's needs, whether they were at their own school or at one of our external events. We are proud of our agility in adapting to yet more challenging circumstances throughout this academic year."

 What Panathlon did to Recover
Panathlon's blended approach gives pupils the opportunity to practise activities first in school before then transferring those newly honed skills into a competitive environment against other schools at face-to-face competitions (particularly evident in Panathlon's primary-age and swimming programmes).
The ever-changing Covid-19 regulations and concern over pupils' health and wellbeing meant 2020/21 delivery had to be adapted to create an environment where schools could feel comfortable mixing with others. By incorporating social distancing, reducing numbers, creating extra space, delivering outside or making innovative format changes, gave schools confidence to participate again.
One pupil in Peterborough encapsulated the mood of many competitors across this year's events. He said: "Lockdown felt like being trapped in a cage, but today feels like the cage door has opened!"
Sporting Programmes

Panathlon also launched a Discovery swimming gala format to help address the decline in swimming participation during Covid. These galas gave pupils an accessible and positive experience and rebuilt water confidence, which had become a barrier to participation along with draining of school pools, time, expense and lack of lesson time in the dwindling number of local authority facilities.

School staff and pupils were ecstatic to return to traditional competitions including primary, secondary, Xtend, swimming, football (including girls' football), boccia, ten-pin bowling and new-age kurling.
They also diversified their offering by adding bespoke activity for areas with existing community links, including tennis, basketball, cricket, power hockey, judo and ice skating.
Panathlon activity grew exponentially in many areas during the year resulting in 29 regional (multi-county) finals with schools showing their dedication by travelling hundreds of miles to participate.

The time has come again to give ourselves a pat on our backs for everything we've done in the last year and get our thinking caps on to how we can keep doing better in the year to come as EllisKnight International releases its sustainability report for 2021.

A massive congratulations to the entire team for surpassing themselves once again as they took on the massive challenge we set ourselves after amending our articles of association in 2020.

As we look back on 2021, we know that last year was another strange year for many people and businesses as we continue to feel the effects of the pandemic.
At EK, we have been excited to continue our journey and were thrilled to become B-Corp Certified in March 2021. We have always positioned ourselves as positive disruptors within our sector, but we are only as good as the exceptionally talented team that we have.

Since we undertook our rejuvenated sustainability journey in 2020, being a purpose led business has been at the underlying theme of everything we've undertaken this last year.

We have become the first recruitment agency to achieve both a Gold CSR Accreditation and receive The Planet Mark. We have also achieved carbon neutral status and re-modelled our business to hold ourselves accountable against the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. As a team we will continue to learn and grow to ensure that a partnership with EllisKnight is always a partnership for good.

Paul Baker, Director at EllisKnight said "For me, working with "Purpose" is about working with people who truly understand what is important on a human level when you strip all the material distractions and ego away. People can focus on something meaningful. They are happier in their work and personal lives and are motivated to do and be better. They go that extra mile to help others and have a true sense of belonging where they genuinely care about and for other people. They feel trusted and are motivated to do their best each day. Amazing things can happen when you get this right!"

In 2021, some of our greatest impacts we achieved as a business was through our wonderful partnerships. Our giving partnerships through B1G1 and Toilet Twinning allowed us to make impacts in the regions of this planet most in need of help. Our partnership and certification with Planet Mark allowed us to reduce our carbon footprint by a massive 62.4% this year.

What we achieved:

• Continued championing B1G1 by donating a percentage of every invoice received on our client's behalf. We made a total of 349,313 impacts throughout 2021.
• We were honoured to have won the Geographic Giving Award from B1G1 in the Special Recognition Category.
• During 2021 we twinned a further 12 toilets on behalf of our clients and suppliers through Toilet Twinning.
• We are the first recruitment agency globally to be Planet Mark certified. In 2021, we achieved our Second Year Certification and reduced our carbon footprint by 62.4%.
• We won the Planet Mark Best Newcomer Award.
• During 2021, half of our team became Mental Health First Aiders through our partnership with Mental Health Charter.
• We became B-Corp certified in March 2021.
• Our team purchased items to pack 30 Buddy Bags and delivered them to a local women's refuge centre.

We are not going to rest there! There are some many more goals we want to achieve in order to be a truly purpose led, sustainable business that looks out for people, planet and prosperity for all. Looking forward, we want to highlight our hopes and dreams for 2022.

What we still need to do:

• Aim to ensure the whole EK team become Mental Health First Aiders.
• Meet a total target of 1 million B1G1 Impacts.
• Reach a total of 15,000 trees in the EK Forest through our partnership with Ecologi.
• Reduce our Carbon Footprint by a further 5% to allow Planet Mark recertification for the third year.
• Offset our carbon footprint through Gold Standard Offsetting Projects and maintain our carbon neutral status as a company.
• In addition to Toilet Twinning, we hope to begin tap twinning for our clients and suppliers – We will twin every tap within EK HQ in 2022.
• Continuing to build upon or exciting Community Partnerships through supporting young people, local charities, and the environment.
• Encourage our EK Family to sign up to Giki to analyse and take ownership for their personal carbon footprint.

Early results
We are proud to say that thanks to the hard work of our lovely team, we have given ourselves a jump and achieved some of this year's To Do list already.
So far this year, we have reduced our Carbon Footprint by 8% already! More than our 5% target and are on our way for our Planet Mark recertification.
We have also achieved our carbon offsetting target and maintained our carbon neutral status for 2022.

EK Receives Endorsement from B1G1 Founder
Paul Dunn Backs The Ethical Recruiter

EllisKnight International is thrilled to receive the endorsement of B1G1's Paul Dunn calling us "the kind of ethical recruiter you want to have on your side".
The Founder of the philanthropic social enterprise that focusses on Business for Good made a lovely video endorsing our business and encourages others to "take a deeper look" at our commitments to the planet.

Filming live from Singapore, he said, "There are recruiters and then there are Recruiters. The team at EllisKnight are in that latter category, the type of ethical recruiter you want to have on your side. These guys really do put people and planet first.

"They really do walk the talk and they are committed to doing great things in this world as well through their partnership with us and total commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)...The team at EllisKnight are committed to building a better future for every one of us, and that means you too."

25 August 2022 will see the two-year anniversary of our partnership with B1G1. In that time, we have made around 350,000 impacts throughout 2021 and over 535,000 impacts in total up to the start of 2022. The projects we have supported thanks to B1G1 range from providing books to schools in India and mosquito nets in Zambia – to giving access to life-saving water in Ethiopia and farming tools and training in Malawi.

In July 2021 we were honoured to have won the Geographic Giving Award from B1G1 in the Special Recognition Category and we hope to have made over 1 million impacts by the end of 2022.

All the projects we support through B1G1 directly impact the UN SDGs. The SDGs are baked into our business and part of our operations. Our partnership with B1G1 allows us reach on a global scale, and while we make direct impacts to Goal 1: No Poverty and Goal 8: Providing Decent Work and Pay as a Living Wage Employer and as a recruiter for jobs with good salaries at home, B1G1 allows us to make impacts on a global scale.

Our five most impacted SDGs to date thanks to our partnership with B1G1 are:
Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities = 86,498
Goal 4: Quality Education = 86,001
Goal 6: Clean Water and Sanitation = 74,699
Goal 3: Good Health and Wellbeing = 70,539
Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities = 63,974

B1G1 is one of a number of valuable sustainability enterprises we partner with to increase our positive impacts to people and planet and to reduce our carbon footprint.

In 2021, we impacted out total carbon footprint by -62.4% compared to our 2020 figures calculated by partners, Planet Mark. Our reduction was achieved by cutting business travel and offsetting by planting 5,563 trees in our Ecologi forest in 2021. We are also proud to have maintained our carbon neutral status for 2021.

Our B Corp Journey

To celebrate B Corp Month, we decided to take you through our own B Corp journey. It has been one year since our accreditation was made official and we could not be prouder to have achieved such a feat.

The journey has empowered us to think about every aspect of our business - down to the smallest details - to help us be the purpose-lead, values-driven recruitment agency that we are today. One that not just positively impacts our industry, but is positively impacting the planet too.

B Corps are modelling the kind of business the world needs - business that meets rigorous standards for social and environmental impact, is transparent, and is accountable to all its stakeholders. B Corps of all sizes across multiple industries are joining together to achieve our collective vision of an inclusive, equitable, and regenerative global economic system that benefits all people and the planet.

We first heard the term B Corp back in 2018 whilst supporting our client, Ella's Kitchen - Mark Cuddigan, their CEO, is an inspirational B Corp Ambassador and candidates have always been encouraged to proactively research B Corp as part of their recruitment process. Mark would also give talks to prospective candidates about B Corps and their mission and values – he has had such a positive impact on our journey.

When the pandemic hit, we wanted to take stock of our business and knew we had to stand for something other than our bottom line. We felt that undertaking the B Corp assessment was the right thing to do, even if it seemed like a daunting journey at the start with potentially up to 200 separate pieces of evidence to submit for scoring.

Luckily, we had a starting point in that we were undergoing our CSR Accreditation at the time which helped us produce detailed records about the business and helped us categorise all our community and philanthropy projects before we got going.

Such an undertaking showed us we were light on our sustainability potential, an essential requirement where B Corp certification was concerned. We partnered with Colin Curtis at Support The Goals to align the business with the UN SDGs, we became a partner of B1G1 and supported causes that directly impacted people and planet. We worked with Planet Mark to analyse our carbon footprint, and enacted initiatives to reduce it, which resulted in a 62.4% drop in the 2020-2021 year.

We also partnered with B Corp ambassadors such as Paul Hargreaves, Founder of Cotswold Fayre, to gain more insights on the process.

We started our B-Impact assessment in the summer of 2020. With our CSRA certification and our Plant Mark certification both confirmed around that time, we felt confident moving into the assessment phase knowing we had a realistic chance of scoring the necessary pass mark of 80.

It took around two months of work to complete the initial questions with a further 2-3 months of further refinement. We aimed for a score of 100, but we required more evidence of knowledge in the public domain and the projects we were conducting to achieve this.

On 4 March 2021, our B Corp status became official!

With a passing score of 92, it was a proud achievement for the business. Right now, the median score for ordinary businesses who complete the assessment is 50.9.

We became the first High-Street recruiter in the UK to become a B Corp, and only the 8th recruitment agency in the world to achieve B Corp status at the time.

Our full score breakdown can be seen on the graph below.

Criteria that is not always relevant to our industry is still scored and we may not be able to improve in some areas, but it does give us further incentive to continually improve our score where we can.

B-Corp's re-verification model means we cannot rest on what we have already accomplished. We must keep on building our community partnerships, inspiring our clients and moving forward with new projects that will benefit our core mission.

We will begin our evidence gathering process at the end of this year for re-verification in 2024.

We are passionate about committing more to our community efforts and supporting amazing organisations close to our heart, including Naomi House & Jack's Place, Panathlon and Buddy Bag Box Challenge.

We are also entering into more great partnerships to improve our environmental impact through working with organisations like Toilet Twinning, and our community inclusion impact with partnering with organisations like Includability – a B Corp Pending organisation – that offer a breadth of best practice knowledge through their extensive community.

This purpose-led journey that has taught us so much - chiefly how we can better serve our planet and our community, the clients we adore, the candidates we cherish, and the EK team mates that we love.

Thank you to Mark Cuddigan, Paul Hargreaves and Masami Sato for inspiring us through your amazing work with Ella's Kitchen, Cotswold Fayre, a certified B Corporation, a certified B Corporation and B1G1 to begin this journey. Thank you to everyone who has inspired us ever since.

 Buddy Bag Box Challenge Packed Before Xmas

Purpose driven recruitment agency, EllisKnight International completed a Challenge Box on 17 December, a team building challenge to help children escaping violence set by its charity partner, Buddy Bag Foundation (BBF).
BBF was created by Founder, Karen Williams OBE in response to the rising number of children who enter emergency care after fleeing violent situations at home.
They seek to restore a sense of safety and security into a child's life during a traumatic time and begin the first steps to recovery. By providing these children with a few essential items, such as clothing, toys, stationary, books and toiletries help make the transition into emergency care a little easier.
There were two main aims for the Berkshire-based team to complete: First, to identify 30 people to receive a shopping bag, then tasking those people to fill said bag with an item needed to fill 30 Buddy Bags. Part of the exercise was to shop for items suitable for children of differing gender and ages, to provide a greater sense of personal touch to the project.
Since we are a small team, roping in a few volunteers was not going to cover all of the tasks and everyone doing the shopping had multiple assignments.
Secondly, once the team had completed their individual tasks, they returned to the office to unpack their shopping and help pack the 30 rucksacks that were to be delivered. It took four hours for our team to pack all of the rucksacks. Much of that time was spent double checking everything to make sure no items were missed before the bags were sealed.

Once packed and labelled, the bags are ready to be delivered to a refuge centre within 20 miles of HQ in Pangbourne.
"The team at EllisKnight are extremely honoured to have completed The Buddy Bag Challenge. The work you guys do is incredible and makes a huge difference to children entering emergency care. To be able to be part of that has left us all with full hearts and the desire to make a difference in 2022! Thank you for the opportunity we look forward to doing it again in the Summer," said Sam Whitby, Social Media Manager at EllisKnight.
The bags will be delivered to a local refuge in Berkshire within a week. Complications with the pandemic has the effort but contact with the refuge is ongoing and they are excited to take the bags from us.
Around 48,000 children require emergency accommodation in the UK each year. These children are often fleeing a violent situation or sexual abuse, and have to leave home quickly, without the chance to collect basic items. Often children will arrive at emergency accommodation centres with only the clothes they are wearing.
Since its formation in 2015, Buddy Bag have distributed 31,121 bags up until the end of 2020 and have supplied over 396 Women's Refuges around the UK.
On a personal level, Sam added, "As soon as I read about what they [BBF] do and how they help children entering emergency accommodation, I knew I would like to support them.

"Having young children myself, I couldn't even begin to imagine being in a situation where you have to flee your home with children and majority of the time only the clothes on your back and how scary this must be for a mother and the children.
"To be able to support a charity that brings a small glimmer of hope and comfort to a child who has been through a scary time just felt right."

Ellis Knight Wins Best Newcomer at Planet Mark Awards

EllisKnight International is very proud to have won the Best Newcomer category at the Planet Mark awards in November.

Held in London as part of the finale of Planet Mark’s Zero Carbon Tour, EllisKnight took the Best Newcomer award shortly after completing recertification to The Planet Mark after reducing our carbon footprint in the previous year by 62.4%   

Patrick Graham, Co-Founder of EllisKnight International, said, “We are delighted to have won Best Newcomer at the recent Planet Mark awards in London – it was an amazing event with some incredible people. Next stop Net Zero!”

Emma Ruttle, Sustainability Manager at EllisKnight International, said, “I am so pleased that EllisKnight has won this award! It means so much to all of us that our hard work over the last 18 months has been recognised and it is a real boost to know that we have made great progress & doing well and we are excited to continue our journey with Planet Mark.”

EllisKnight has pledged to become a Net Zero business. 

Berkshire's own EllisKnight International Recruitment has completed recertification on our Planet Mark membership.

As a celebration, our team were treated a Year 2 Energiser meeting from Hannah Dean-Wood, Engagement Manager at Planet Mark, to run through the key stats of the great work undertaken by the team.

Planet Mark, an Official Partner of EllisKnight International, is a membership organisation that supports forward-thinking businesses in their sustainability goals and certifying their achievements. When you see a Planet Mark certified member, you know that they are driving continuous positive change through their actions, people and reach.

David Holby-Wolinski, Co-Founder of EllisKnight International, said:
"We are so delighted to have recertified with Planet Mark and it ensures we continue to remain accountable to our sustainability pledge as an ethical recruitment agency. To enable us as a business to create a strong and transparent carbon reduction strategy we needed to build our knowledge and understand the numbers behind the science. The incredibly special relationship we have Planet Mark has allowed us to do just that and we're very proud to be now recognised as a sustainability game changer within our industry.

"We will continue to learn and be inspired by other businesses within the Planet Mark community – we have a collective responsibility to strive to make this world a better place for our children and the generations that will follow."

The purpose of becoming more sustainable is due to the increasing threat of climate change to our world and livelihoods. Earth's atmosphere now contains more than 420 ppm (parts per million) of CO2, a significant increase on other natural peaks of the gas in history.
With politicians and activists attending the COP 26 summit in Glasgow recently, it remains unclear how significant The Glasgow Climate Pact and follow-up actions will be against the unfolding crisis. Businesses and organisations that want to do their bit for climate and social prosperity are advised to adopt and follow the targets of the UN SDGs.

We are thrilled to report that between May 2020 and April 2021, our carbon footprint has reduced by 62.4%, well ahead of our 5% reductions year-on-year. Much of the fall can be attributed to changes afflicted by the pandemic, but it is our aim to keep many practices which led to this dramatic fall in place for the foreseeable future.

Our total carbon footprint was 18.4 (tCO2e) averaging at 2.3 (tCO2e) per employee. The biggest reductions came from business travel and electricity usage.
With a full breakdown of our impacts, we are still set to reach our target of net zero by 2050. Planet mark are encouraging us to reduce our footprint further by another 5% (0.9 tCO2e) by next year, however they accept that future reductions are banked against our Year 1 figures for the next two year due to the pandemic.

Steve Malkin, Founder and CEO of Planet Mark, said:

"We are delighted to have EllisKnight International join us at Planet Mark.  The next generation of talent is increasingly conscious of their prospective employers' environmental credentials. By working with likeminded individuals in both directions of its supply chain, EllisKnight International is propelling the sustainability agenda in the recruitment industry and beyond. The team's enthusiasm in demonstrating the sustainable measures it has in place is remarkable, and the talk is backed up by some really robust policies. EllisKnight wants to do business differently and position itself as a leader in the recruitment industry, and it is well on the way to achieving these goals."

Our partners have recommended several steps to keep our reduction targets on track including:

• Participating in the Planet Mark Carbon Tour – Our Co-Founder, David, spoke at the Heathrow leg of the tour on 16 Nov
• Considering a net zero strategy
• Joining their online community platform
• Download the Planet Mark toolkits and other resources.
• Sharing our success stories with Plant Mark on LinkedIn
• Keeping up the good work and continuing to work towards the recommended 5% reduction for next year

We look forward to recertifying next year.

Click here to see our Planet Mark Commitment:

At long last, we have released the 2020 sustainability data!

The team at Berkshire-based recruitment agency, EllisKnight International have released our 2020 sustainability report on 23^rd July 2021.

In an extraordinary year for everyone, and for so many reasons, who could have predicted the challenges that families and businesses would face throughout 2020? We took the time to reflect, time to review, and time to establish exactly what is that we stood for, while we reviewed our blueprint.

We have always positioned ourselves as positive disruptors within our sector, but we are only as good as the exceptionally talented team that we have. From becoming the first recruitment agency to achieve a Gold CSR Accreditation and The Planet Mark, to achieving carbon neutral status, and holding ourselves accountable against the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, we will continue to learn and grow to ensure that a partnership with EllisKnight International is always a partnership for good.

Thanks to our partnership with Ecologi, we planted 144 trees in our EllisKnight forest between September and December. We also supported another three major tree planting projects in which over 4,400 trees were planted and supported six carbon reduction projects in which over 103 tonnes of CO₂ were removed.

In those short three months, we achieved three Ecologi milestone badges for climate positivity, tree planting and carbon reduction. We also work with Terracycle, Climate Care, Carbon Footprint Ltd and Ecosia to ensure we do our part on climate action.    

We twin a client’s toilet every month with a latrine in a developing community through Toilet Twinning which helps bring clean water and safe sanitation to the world’s poorest people.   

We are a Living Wage employer, not only for our team, but all candidates we place also receive a minimum of the Real Living Wage of £9.50 per hour. We also offer staff interest free loans of up to £1000 PA to help with unexpected expenditures. 

EllisKnight International is committed to equality, diversity and opposition to all forms of workplace discrimination and regularly monitor the effectiveness of our policy. Applications received to join our team, or the teams of our clients, are treated equally regardless of sex, age, sexual orientation, marital status, race, religion, religious beliefs, colour, nationality, creed, ethnic or national origin, gender reassignment or disability. We are proud signatories of the Race at Work Charter and the Good Business Charter. We also offer accessible recruitment campaigns and partnership with Recite Me which can offer an accessible platform for any vacancy.

“We wanted to understand how we could do this and still have a positive impact on society, the environment, our customers and our team. From “Kaisen” based ideas focused around small improvements to our accreditations, certifications and clear purpose – we use our business as a force for good, putting people and planet before profit.” – Patrick Graham, co-founder of EllisKnight International.  

A recent report from B Lab gave insights into the progress towards the SDGs, the key component of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It concluded that progress towards these goals have remained stagnant, especially the contributions from the private sector.

As a positive disruptor, we believe our reaffirmation to the SDGs is necessary, especially our continued support for Goal 1: No Poverty, Goal 5: Gender Equality, Goal 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth and Gaol 10: Reduced Inequalities as part of our business model.

We will also continue to support Goal 3: Good Health and Wellbeing, Goal 4: Quality Education, Goal 6: Clean Water and Sanitation, Goal 12: Responsible Consumption and Production, Goal 13: Climate Action, and Goal 15: Life on Land through our continued partnerships.   

By the end of 2021, we strive to meet or exceed the following targets.

• Become B Corp Certified (achieved in March 2021) – We had a responsibility to be sustainable and put people and planet before profit. We wanted to set an example for the recruitment sector. As a result, we produced EK giving page in build up to verification
• Reduce carbon footprint by minimum of 5% over 2020/21 (achieved on 30^th April 2021) – We introduced a working from home model which reduced commuter miles and converted all systems to online for a paperless office. Overall, we achieved a 63% reduction (skewed by the pandemic) but we still plan to reduce our footprint next year by another 5% from 2020-21 baseline
• Give all staff have membership of The Collective – Outliers Wellbeing community Group (achieved on 26^th July 2021)   
• Remain carbon neutral by offsetting our verified carbon footprint using our existing partners’ programmes 
• Achieve our Ecologi target of 10,000 trees in the EllisKnight forest  
• Achieve our B1G1 target to create 750,000 impacts
• Fulfill obligations to support our local communities by sponsoring local sports teams, charitable events, and educational projects.

We will continue to fundraise for Buddy Bag Foundation and Naomi House Children’s Hospice, giving as much as we can every year to support their wonderful causes.       

 Click on the image to see our Sustainability Report: