Our CSR team has just turned ten! So, we’re taking a look at some of the great work that’s been done so far this year, as well as some highlights from the last decade.
What CSR Means
It’s a buzzword that’s thrown around a lot. But just what is it? Well, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a self-regulating business model where companies commit to operating in ways which enhance society and the environment, rather than harming them. In short: put good out into the world.
CSR at Clearcast
CSR at Clearcast is an initiative which focuses on three areas: volunteering/fundraising, inspiring the young and green initiatives. Plus, wherever possible, we try to prioritise working in our local community.
Since its humble beginnings in 2015, the CSR team has grown and evolved. The 6 current members organise everything alongside their day-to-day roles, which can be tricky, and just goes to show how much they genuinely care. A huge thank you to Justyna, Cass, Alex, Tilly, Erin and Josh!
The rest of the team volunteers, attends, supports or donates, to help out worthy causes. Staff contributed over 100 hours and raised over £3,000 for various causes in 2024 alone. We hope this year proves just as successful!
This year’s chosen charity
This year’s charity, which is the focus for all of 2025’s fundraising efforts, is Centrepoint, as voted for by staff. One young person faces homelessness every four minutes. Centrepoint, the UK’s leading homelessness charity, supports almost 14,000 young people every year and are campaigning to end youth homelessness by 2037.
2025: Supporting Centrepoint
Kicking things off at the end of last year, we gave our annual Christmas donation to Centrepoint. And since, the team have organised an Easter Bake Sale, with delicious homemade treats lovingly made by Clearcast’s star bakers, raising a total of £123!
Next up will be a rounders match in July against our friends at Thinkbox. The last few years’ fierce competitions proved a great success. And last year (because we’ll take any opportunity to boast) we even emerged as the victors (a first in our many years of hosting sporting events)! Following will be a quiz in the autumn, which similarly, proved great fun last year, garnering lots of donations.
2025: Community & sustainability
In addition to our chosen charity, we’ve continued to support some of our long-term partners, as well as other initiatives, by volunteering our time, equipment or elbow-grease.
Inspire delivers programmes which support the personal and professional development, mental wellbeing and employability for young people. Clearcasters have taken part in career days, helping with interview skills, career inspiration and more.
“The day was hard-work but super rewarding! I enjoyed working out how to best support each person we connected with that day, to help with their future careers, and life going forward. Even though it was only one day out of our lives, the work that Inspire does will be truly life-changing for some of those students.”
– Alyx Leeming, Communications and Marketing Manager, Clearcast
Think & Do Camden delivers climate and social action projects in the local community. Their ethos is “If we act as individuals, it will be too little. But if we act as one big community, it may be enough and just in time”. So far this year the Clearcast team have volunteered planting wildflower turf, painting and installing beeline boxes.
Computers for Charities (CfC) refurbishes donated computers, laptops, and smartphones, securely removing all their data, and distributes them to the organisations that need them most. They also operate education, advice and support programmes. We proudly donated a number of laptops and computers to CfC to ensure they’re put to use in the best way.
“I spent considerable time talking to them during collection and they told me about all the good work they’ve done across the world. They’ve found that projects have a 50/50 chance of failure, whereas if they work with the group in need, it has a very high chance of success.”
– Andrew Taylor, IT Manager, Clearcast
World Book Day gave us a brilliant opportunity to encourage buying from charity shops. We set up ‘Blind Date with a Book’ where staff would purchase a book from a charity shop, wrap and label it with a brief description. Participants could then pick up a new mystery book from the “shelf” to enjoy.
A decade of highlights
All of this brilliant work is just from this year alone (and its only June!). But, there have been many highlights across the last decade to be proud of.
- Volunteering and fundraising – supporting a number of great charities with social or sporting events, from Bloody Good Period to the Trussel Trust, helping with donation drives for humanitarian causes like the crisis in Ukraine, and volunteering with organisations like The Whitechapel Mission. Plus, just last year a group of Clearcasters completed the huge 12km NABS Walk and Talk.
- Inspiring the young – working closely with schools to offer hands-on work experience placements, internships and mentorship programmes to help inspire and support children of all different ages.
- Green initiatives – taking big steps towards environmentally conscious practices, from revamping our office with the guidance of sustainability consultants from Turner & Townsend, overhauling our IT equipment to reduce our power consumption by over 50%, and, as members of the Camden Climate Change Alliance, pledging our support, with a goal for the borough to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2030.
Looking Ahead
As we celebrate a decade of ‘Clearcast for Better’, we’re reminded that real change happens when people come together with purpose. We’re proud of what we’ve achieved and even more excited for what’s to come. Here’s to the next ten years!
You can read more about our CSR work here: https://clearcast.co.uk/corporate-social-responsibility/
