Who We Are | Business in the Community Northern Ireland

Business in the Community stands for responsible business. Set up in Northern Ireland in 1989, we now have more than 270+ members and are the largest business-led coalition dedicated to corporate responsibility.

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Our Vision

To achieve a world where responsible business is at the core of every organisation.

Our Purpose

To inspire and support business to be a force for good.

Business in the Community is the network for responsible business. A registered charity and membership organisation, we exist to support and challenge business to be a force for good in society. We have a presence in all parts of the UK and a sister organisation in the Republic of Ireland.

We are led by business and in Northern Ireland our 270+ members employ more than 40% of the working population. Our network is comprised of companies of all sizes and from all sectors.

Our ability to convene business is one of our greatest strengths and we use that power to encourage collaboration to tackle key societal and environmental issues.

To help us decide where we are best placed to influence and act on those issues, we will ask ourselves a series of questions before deciding on a course of action. We call this our litmus test.

Our litmus test

  • Does this fit with our unique purpose of engaging business in society?
  • Are we best placed to deliver?
  • Could we be duplicating the work/role of others?
  • Do we have the skills and resources, or can we get them?

Our Responsibilities…

It would be wrong for us to encourage companies to act responsibly without proactively ensuring that our own impact on our People, the Planet and the Places where we operate wasn’t as good as it could be.

We pride ourselves on setting and achieving high standards and we constantly challenge ourselves to do more, in order to inspire and encourage. Our dedication to improvement of our planet is apparent through the certification of our Environment Management System.

Business in the Community’s values commit us to be focused, passionate, pioneering, collaborative, and to act with integrity. We strive to ensure that what we do internally is aligned to the asks that we make of our members. Business in the Community has signed the Climate Action Pledge, a public commitment to reduce our absolute scope 1 and scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030; and to work towards measuring and reporting scope 3 GHG emissions. You can see our ambitious Carbon Action Plan here.

For more information on how we implement our commitments, please refer to our latest ‘Walk the Talk’ Report click here.

To view Business in the Community’s Environmental Policy click here.

To view our Responsible Procurement Policy, click here.

To read Business in the Community’s Carbon Literacy Training case study, click here.