Protyre
 

Doing right is the right thing to do

Our Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) commitment

Foreword from

Jon Cowles, CEO

Now more than ever, employees, customers and suppliers are challenging companies like ours to demonstrate how we are doing our part in ensuring a sustainable future by describing what our Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) activities are. For us, this means not only meeting our pledges on diversity and equality, employee wellbeing and responsible consumption, but setting the standards for our industry. People have looked to Micheldever Group to lead the way for over 50 years, but these issues are not unique to our company and we all have a role to play in addressing them. Our commitment to sustainability extends across all of our operations and is gathering pace with initiatives and measures that are already yielding results. As a company, we have committed to a 50% reduction in our Scope 1 and 2 carbon outputs by 2030 and being completely carbon neutral by 2050. Whilst those dates may sound some way away, it is critical that we start the work now and progress is already being made through practical measures taken across the business, and with our partners. The steps that we take today will have a material effect on what happens to our world tomorrow. Our customers and suppliers expect it, our employees want it, and we all have an obligation to ensure we leave this world in a better shape than when we came into it. This is at the core of MTS’s purpose – to sustainably support a lifetime of safe and reliable motoring.

From humble beginnings...

The Micheldever Group began life over 50 years ago as a small part-time venture, offering car servicing and tyres to its local community in Hampshire. Today we have grown to become one of the UK’s largest distributors and retailers of tyres (via our Protyre brand), and it is our intention to still be here 50 years from now. But unless we all rethink the way we do business, that objective may be taken out of our hands.

…our purpose guides the way

Within Micheldever Group we are driven by a purpose to sustainably support a lifetime of safe and reliable motoring. We do this through building trusted relationships and partnerships with our suppliers, customers, communities and our own employees. Always providing exceptional service and value for money, whilst mindful of the impact on our environment. To ensure that we are the number one destination for all of our customers tyre and vehicle servicing needs.

...do the right thing

The term “ESG” refers to a company’s approach to Environmental, Social and Governance matters – how their activities impact the environment, the society they operate within, and how transparent they are perceived to be in terms of holding themselves accountable to their stakeholders and being clear about what they are trying to achieve. We have adopted the UN SDGs as the framework for delivering our ESG strategies, building on a sound, established approach to human rights and environmental issues. This has allowed us to determine where our activities impact people, economies and the environment, prioritising accordingly:

• Environmental – our commitment to modern environmental practices, including our carbon footprint, use and disposal of natural resources, and other climate change initiatives.

• Social – how we treat our people – from customers and employees, to our entire supply chain. This includes our approach to diversity and inclusion, anti-harassment, discrimination and equitable employment standards, learning and development as well as our contribution to the local communities in which we operate.

• Governance – the purpose, culture, behaviour and values of our business – from our corporate structure, the transparency of our finances, our internal processes, through to how we manage risks and issues. It also sets out our ethical approach to business – from gender pay and Modern Slavery to anti-bribery and other anticorruption policies.

…ourselves and as part of a much bigger group

Micheldever Group is owned by Sumitomo Rubber Industries Ltd (SRI) – a global tyre and rubber product manufacturer listed on the Japanese market – that was founded in 1909 and is now the world’s fifth largest tyre producer, manufacturing more than 110 million tyres each year. SRI also manufactures products for industrial, medical and sports applications.

Click to view the SRI Group Profile

ESG is as important to our parent company as it is to us, and SRI’s ESG policies are set out on their Group website:

Click to view the Long-Term Sustainability Policy

Since 2021, SRI has adopted the FTSE4Good Index Series as an important independently calculated KPI for sustainability to judge how we rank against other companies across the world – and especially those in Japan. The latest results assess SRI with an ESG score of 4.2, placing us in the top 3% of Japanese companies, out-performing many much larger global companies listed on the Japanese market.

Environment

Micheldever Group believes that reducing the impact its activities have on the environment is fundamental to achieving its purpose to sustainably support a lifetime of safe and reliable motoring.

We are promoting the use of new vehicle technologies where it is practical to do so, and have started the electrification of our fleet, as well as testing bio-fuel as a further alternative. 30% of our car fleet is already on alternative fuel and we took delivery of the first Battery Electric Vehicles (“BEVs”) for our delivery fleet in July 2023.

All of the electricity that we purchase for our warehouses, Protyre Autocare centres and Head Office buildings is now 100% renewable.

We are also installing solar panels on our own properties, where it is feasible to do so. We aim to get tyres to the right destination first time, minimising the miles travelled by our (and our supply chain’s) logistics’ operations, in turn reducing the carbon footprint.

We aim to save 28 ½ tonnes of paper by introducing new IT Systems, and a further 12 tonnes by switching our Retail invoices to e-mail. Elsewhere we are moving away from single use plastic, with our Protyre autocentres introducing compostable seat and gear stick covers when carrying out servicing work as well as sustainable protective gloves for our technicians. Our marketing team has abandoned plastic pen giveaways, and our office teams have adopted longer life printer cartridges whilst switching to biotech cleaning products which are better for the environment.

With end of life tyres we work with licensed process partners to return the millions of tyres we collect each year back into the circular economy – either crumbed to use as a more efficient alternative to fossil fuels or – in the future – processed to provide a sustainable supply of recovered carbon black for use in future tyre production.

Our environmental objectives are to achieve:
• a 50% reduction in carbon outputs by 2030, becoming fully carbon neutral by 2050
• sustainable consumption by reducing the materials and products we consume in carrying out our work
• sustainable production by sourcing and using sustainable materials and products wherever possible

Social

Micheldever Group believes that its communities and staff should enjoy prosperous, healthy and fulfilling lives – where economic and technological processes occur in harmony with nature.

We actively encourage our people to ask for support when they need it, whilst promoting a good work/life balance. We believe that to create a healthy and supportive working environment, we must have a mental health approach that is both consistent and appropriate across our entire business.

Health and safety is everyone’s responsibility, from the Executive and throughout our organisation. We want employees to feel that their workplace is safe and they should never feel they have to compromise health and safety in order to achieve their business objectives. No-one associated with our activities should be harmed by what we do, which means that we need to work closely with our customers and suppliers to ensure that our activities are carried out safely and healthily.

We wish to maintain our place as a recognised leader and a pioneer in our industry. We recognise our position in the ecosystem of society – with active supply chain management to ensure our partners follow the same principles that we value strongly.

We support Apprenticeships and industry training programmes – notably within our Protyre team – that encourage more people to enter and build careers in the automotive sector.

Our local teams are active in their communities, supporting and fund-raising through the year for a range of local charity partners. As a Group we actively support BEN – the charity that exists to support anyone who works – or has worked – in the automotive industry.

Our social objectives are to achieve:
• a healthy and supportive working environment for our employees that promotes good mental health, a good work/life balance, and reduces reportable workplace accidents to zero
• learning and development for all, with a substantial increase in the number of employees with relevant expertise, including technical and vocational skills, by 2025
• an ongoing contribution to the industry that we are part of – from employing new apprentices to championing the big issues

Governance

Operating to a consistently high ethical standard in our business activities is the foundation of building and maintaining the trust of others. We must act honestly and fairly, meet all relevant regulations and follow proper practices to ensure that the Micheldever Group remains accountable and makes the right business decisions.

We align our leadership Key Performance Indicators to our corporate goals, to ensure that we work as one team towards pre-determined targets, with all contributing to our success – senior executive incentives are now clearly linked to ESG objectives through our Sustainable Growth Plan.

As a large UK Company and subsidiary of a Japanese public company we have a number of formal frameworks that taken together create a strong governance environment for our business – these include J-Sox internal control standards and adoption of the Wates Principles of corporate governance

To maintain our integrity and high ethical standards, we have a dedicated risk team that works to ensure that we meet all of our obligations under applicable UK law and regulation.

Taxes that we pay are an important part of our broader economic and social impact on our communities – and are a key part of our objective to operate in a socially responsible way

We do not seek to influence customers’ decisions by employing improper operating activities. Gaining the trust of our customers provides more sustainable, longerterm benefits than winning business through improper practice.

Our governance objectives are to achieve:
• the highest level of ethical standards in our business activities
• fair competition in accordance with all relevant regulations
• a working environment that promotes equal opportunities, diversity and inclusion
• exceptional quality products and services for our customers • continuous improvements in the environmental impact of our operation

Doing right is the right thing to do

Our Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) commitment

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