This year we Pledged to 'Make A Difference'...

Pledges timeline

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January 2021 - Paperless Pledge

EVONA announce our pledges to use 2021 to #MakeADifference

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EVONA have committed to maintaining a paper free office and this initiative has been in place since moving to our new office in October. Going paper free was really important too us for many reasons; the environment, the current Covid-19 situation, employee accessibility and digitising the company.

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So far, the effort from our team has been fantastic and our paper usage is now next to none! If you’re wondering how we’ve managed to achieve this over the past year – these are some of the things we have introduced to make this possible…

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Documents are created as PDF’s

Everything is signed digitally

We use a cloud to store and share documents

Moved to online accounting software – meaning no paper payslips

Hot desking policy only means each space needs to be kept tidy, so it encourages only having a laptop and no extra mess

Employees use email calendars

Companywide no printing policy

Paper coffee cups have been banned and staff have been provided with a reusable EVONA coffee cup (pictured above) which can be taken to local coffee shops

No paper CV’s any applicants must submit these online

Company intranet to share company news/data/information rather than handouts and lengthy handbooks

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February 2021 - Young Minds pledge to raise £1,000

We announce our official charity as YoungMinds

Mental health is a big issue. Roughly 3 children in every classroom has a diagnosable mental health disorder and as half of all mental health problems manifest by the age of 14, acting fast and giving young people the support they need will make a remarkable difference to the overall mental health of the population. We have the power to help change the stigma surrounding mental health issues, but with less than 1% of NHS budget attributed to children’s and young people’s mental health, more must be done to help.

How can you help?

CLICK HERE TO DONATE

‍March 2021 - Family Food For Free Easter Donations

This month EVONA have focussed on what we can do to help our local community.

As proud Bristolians, we love the city we live in but we know that lockdown measures and furlough schemes have hit our community hard, so we set about trying to make a difference. We spoke to our local food bank in Bristol, Family Food 4 Free (FF4F), to see what we could do to help and the response was that they were desperate for Easter Eggs.

Challenge accepted...

Throughout both lockdowns FF4F, lead by Aimee and Daniel Waters, have served the local community with emergency food parcels, freshly made meals and charitable donations.

Knowing they wanted to bring a little extra joy to the people of Bristol and surrounding area with chocolate egg-shaped happiness, the EVONA crew initially set ourselves a target to donate 300 Easter eggs, agreeing we would each add a few to our weekly shop or donate cash so we could coordinate discounts to buy in bulk.

We raised over £250 between us and purchased 346 Easter Eggs and 150 Creme Eggs! Which is enough if you put them end-to-end to stretch the length of a full-sized football pitch or the width of the International Space Station. It was so much, that FF4F had to come and pick them up in a van!

Aimee from FF4F said "Massive thank you for your Easter donations, we are now able to help local families, elderly, hostels support services and even young youth groups."

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The team did an amazing job coming together to make this happen. Well done, crew!

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April 2021 - Carbon Neutral pledge

As Earth day takes place in April we knew how important it was to action the commitments we have make to the environment in our pledges this month...

The serious of the climate crisis is continuously escalating but as we grow, we are becoming more aware of our own impact on the environment. EVONA are continuously looking for ways to incorporate greener strategies into our business and that’s why this year we have pledged to reduce our carbon footprint.

In true EVONA style we not only set out to reduce our carbon footprint, but we wanted to achieve net-zero… completely carbon neutral

This month with the help of Tree-Nation, a fantastic reforestation initiative aiming to stop climate change by planting trees.

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We have now begun growing the EVONA forest - planting 2 trees per employee per month.

SEE THE IMPACT OUR FOREST IS MAKING

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You may have also noticed this little icon below on our website, not only have Tree-Nation helped us offset our internal carbon emissions but that of our website too (who would have guessed that in reading this article you are helping offset carbon on our website)

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DONATE TREES TO THE EVONA FOREST HERE

May 2021 - Everest Challenge

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Headed up by our Marketing Exec Danni, in May we kicked off our campaign to support Young Minds by taking part in the Everest Challenge. To raise money for Young Minds our whole team is tackled the Everest Challenge  - walking the equivalent steps from base camp to the summit and back within the month.

The challenges of fighting mental health can feel like having a mountain to climb and no child or young person should have to fight this battle alone, which is why we wanted to take on the biggest mountain of all!

We raised over £1,250 from donations.

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July 2021 - South West STEM Fest & Webinars

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EVONA are all STEM Ambassadors, doing what we can to get more young children into STEM careers and lifting the curtain on the space sector so everyone knows they can have a role in space. In July, we teamed up with South West STEM Fest creating a presentation resource for KS4 and KS5 pupils to help demystify the sector for the next generation.

August 2021 - Octopus Electric Cars Initiative launched

This month we introduced a salary sacrifice benefit available to all our employees - it's like a 'cycle to work scheme' but for electric cars. Working with Octopus Electric Cars, the scheme means we could help our crew save up to 40% on a brand new electric car - great for the team, good for the business and kind to the planet.

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October 2021 - Hello Yellow Day

EVONA went yellow for a whole day and hosted our own Hello Yellow event raising over £250 for Young Minds. We sold cupcakes, decorated faces, turned the office into a homage too all things yellow as well as giving our employees top tips on how to look after their own mental health.

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November 2021 - Winning Awards and donating over £11,000 to Charities

On the 9th November we attended the Lloyds Bank Business Excellence Award ceremony as finalists in the New Business of the Year category. Not only did we walk away with the award, coming first in our category and winning the accolade but also this (right) equally impressive status symbol from the nights' charity auction supporting the excellent work of mental health charity, Mind.

For those unfamiliar, this is a photo from one of the episodes of comedy show 'Only Fools and Horses' shot in the centre of Bristol - the home of EVONA. Fuelled by one or two glasses of champagne, Ryan (co-founder) might have been pressured into the buy by our Head of Marketing, Adele - who mainly fell in love with it as a Bristolian child of the 80s. The things we do for our crew!

In addition to this piece of Bristol history, EVONA also chose to support Mind UK with a second sizable donation on the night. It's our belief that no one should face a mental health issue alone and it's why we've chosen to support such charities this year.

This same month, our Principal Consultant Sam also raised £150 during Movember for men's health charities by growing a moustache that even Tom Selleck was jealous of (not really, but close!)

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December 2021 - St Mungo's Donation

It's St Mungo's vision that everyone should have a place to call home and can fulfil their hopes and ambitions. Despite best efforts, homelessness has continued to rise in the UK with the number of people sleeping rough ever increasing. The global pandemic exacerbated the precarious housing ad financial situation of many people n the UK who had no other choice but to abandon their homes.

In December we donated hundreds of goods in the fight to stop homelessness in support of St Mungo's work in a drive headed up by our Account Manager, Glen.

We donated:

• 18 Bags of groceries - including biscuits, chocolates, pasta, crisps, cereals, rice, noodles, tea, coffee, sugar, dried milk, and tins and tins of food!
• 3 Bags of toiletries - including deodorant, shower gel, toothpaste, towels, shampoo and soap
• 40kg of quality second-hand clothes

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