Adopting United Nation’s SDGs to build a better world | Urban Company’s ESG India Report
As we work towards building a sustainable and responsible organization, here’s our first ESG India report outlining our efforts thus far, but more importantly laying down our commitments and goals towards building a better world.
Read the complete report here.
In 2015, United Nations released the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a collection of 17 interlinked global goals designed to be a blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. These goals lay out the agenda to end poverty and other deprivations, improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth — all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.
Of the 17 goals, we identified 5 priority goals that align well with our vision, mission and core platform operations. These goals will help us contribute to building a better world for everyone.
What are these goals?
- Good health and well-being: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all ages
- Gender equality: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
- Decent work and economic growth: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
- Reduced inequalities: Reduce inequality within and among countries
- Responsible consumption and production: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
ESG Materiality Matrix
Our ESG materiality assessment has been designed to identify the most relevant and pertinent issues for our organisation from an ESG perspective.
Our ESG commitments
Our key pillars of impact tie up with the overall ESG commitments of promoting economic empowerment, equity, social security, safety, and a better quality of life for all our stakeholders as we organise home and beauty services.
Social | Middle-class earnings
We have a structured approach towards the holistic development of our service partners. Our investments in skilling our professionals have paid rich dividends through high customer satisfaction. This has led to an increase in demand for our partners who are being recognised respectfully in the society for their skills.
In November 2021, we partnered with PGA Labs (business research unit of the consulting firm Praxis Global Alliance) to conduct a study, comparing the earnings and work-life balance of service partners operating on the UC platform to professionals working in the offline industry.
Highlights:
- UC partners’ net earnings are 2x the min. wage*
- ₹30,455 — Net earnings per month for partners with >30 orders in a month**
- ₹38,263 — Net earnings per month for top 20% UC partners**
*Minimum wage in Delhi for semi-skilled is INR 15,400 ( the highest among all states & UTs in India)
**As per Urban Company Q3 Earnings Index
Social | Safety Net
Urban Company provides the following insurance benefits to its partners under the Group Personal Accident insurance:
1. Accidental death cover: ₹600,000
2. Disability insurance: ₹600,000
3. Accidental hospitalisation: ₹70,000
4. Education grant for children in case of death or permanent disability: ₹60,000
5. Loan waiver in case of death or permanent disability: ₹50,000
6. Accidental OPD treatment: ₹10,000
Further, all Urban Company Plus partners have access to health insurance benefits of up to ₹200,000, including in-hospitalisation treatment, room or ICU expenses, OPD, medical equipment and 12 free online doctor consultations in a year.
Social | Training & Skilling
We conduct extensive training programs for partners over the course of their association with UC. The first training session happens at the time of onboarding, ranging from 3 days to 45 days, depending on the partner’s skill level and category.
All our partners are Skill India-certified under our MoU with the National Skill Development Council in 2019.
Highlights:
- 3+ million hours invested in training
- ₹100 crore invested since 2014 on training
- 150+ Training centers
- 250+ Full-time trainers
Social | Wealth creation
In March 2022, we introduced the Urban Company Partner Stock Ownership Plan to enable our partners to benefit from the company’s growth journey. Under this plan, we will award stocks worth INR 150 Cr. to thousands of service partners over the next 5–7 years. The company will set up an evergreen trust to manage the PSOP plan, and award them at near zero cost to service partners.
Urban Company’s response to COVID-19
We invested heavily in ensuring partner and customer safety during service delivery. We purchased more than 1.8 crore face masks and distributed them among our partners. Overall, we invested more than INR 60 crore in the purchase of PPE kits for the partners.
Highlights:
- Vaccination for all
- Interest-free monetary advances
- COVID-19 relief fund
- COVID-19 partner task force
- Safety equipment for all
COVID-19 support for customers
Highlights:
- Vaccination updates on the app
- Implementation of 8-step safety protocol for every service
COVID-19 support for employees
Highlights:
- Vaccination for all
- Unlimited sick leaves
Governance
We consider strong governance to be a key pillar for sustainable, long-term growth. We have four key governance pillars.
- Independent & diverse board composition
- Robust internal processes & controls
- Data privacy & systems integration
- Executive compensation — Pay for performance
We are also committed to building a trusted marketplace and our Trust and Safety team is dedicated to protecting our community of service partners and consumers. We also take full responsibility for maintaining the sanctity of data concerning its employees, service partners and customers.
Read the complete report here.
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https://medium.com/uc-design
https://medium.com/uc-engineering
https://medium.com/uc-culture
https://www.urbancompany.com/blog/humans-of-urban-company/
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