I am pleased to confirm our continued support for the Ten Principles of the United Nations Global Compact on human rights, labour, environment, and anti-corruption.

In this annual Communication on Progress, we describe our actions to continually improve the integration of the Global Compact and its principles into our business strategy, culture, and daily operations. We also commit to sharing this information with our stakeholders using our primary channels of communication.

Marek Talarczyk
Chief Executive Officer, Netguru

Since Netguru’s inception, our organizational culture has been based on such values ​​as respect, trust, and transparency. On a daily basis, we foster an inclusive workplace culture, boost social participation, and advocate it outside of Netguru.

In the reporting period, Netguru’s commitment to protecting human rights has been reflected in a number of very concrete actions:

1) Financial contribution to Grupa Granica: In October 2021, we encouraged employees to donate to Grupa Granica with a commitment by Netguru to match the amount donated. This network of organizations was directly helping people on the Polish-Belarusian border through donations of clothes and medicines, monitoring the situation, and managing volunteers. The final amount given to Grupa Graniza as a result of this initiative was PLN 40,000.

2) Resigned from cooperation in projects violating human rights: In 2022 alone, Netguru resigned from pursuing four projects that, in our judgment, were too much at risk of violating human rights. These decisions were all based on an Ethics Committee process and analysis that we set up in the company at the end of 2021 in order to stay true to our values and the B Corporation Declaration of Interdependence. Our approach to ethics was featured by a major innovation news publication on ethics in the tech world (article).

3) Financial contribution for Ukraine: In March 2022, we encouraged employees to donate to organizations supporting Ukraine with a commitment by Netguru to double that amount. Netguru employees donated over PLN 100,000 to organizations supporting Ukraine, and Netguru matched this donation with an additional PLN 110,000.
Pro bono contribution for Ukraine: We have dedicated two tech teams (developers and consultants) to work pro bono within the Tech for Ukraine initiative (by Tech To The Rescue).

4) We built a platform for non-profits in Poland that consolidates NGO projects to better manage national efforts (https://forumrazem.org.pl/pl)
We worked with Ukrainski Dom on a strategic level - an NGO helping refugees from Ukraine in Poland – an association that has grown from five to 100 people since the war began

5) Continuing to co-found Tech To The Rescue: We continued our strategic engagement in a global platform that matches tech companies and non-profit organizations to implement technology solutions to solve the world's most pressing problems. Projects delivered thanks to this movement address human rights, animal welfare, environment, and more.

- Engaged in 5 pro bono projects with social and/or environmental purposes since the last CoP: for Sinergia Animal; for Wielka Orkiestra Świątecznej Pomocy; Need Energy; Ukrainski Dom, and Forum Razem
- Investigated 9 ethical concerns related to potential projects and rejected 4 potential clients due to ethics
- Carried out 10 internal workshops related to diversity and inclusion dedicated to different teams
- Improved the gender balance in teams: 36% of Netguru staff are women, 50% of our core team are women, 38% of the directors/managers are women, and 39% of our leaders are women
- Donated PLN 120,000 for social purposes (Grupa Granica, and for Ukraine through the ING Dzieciom Foundation action)

At Netguru, we placed the UN Sustainable Development Goals at the heart of our strategy and obtained the B Corporation™ certificate, joining the community of over 5,000 companies in the world that have committed to developing a sustainable economic model. That includes our approach to ethical labour and creating an inclusive workplace.

In 2022, together with external experts, we have designed and carried out internal workshops and/or webinars focused on different angles of diversity and inclusion, and dedicated to diverse internal teams. Our diversity ambition is not only to counteract discrimination in respect to employment and occupation but also to commit to a wider business effort to address Sustainable Development Goal number ten – “Reduced Inequalities.”

In a series of three workshops, our Talent Acquisition Team deepened their knowledge on recognizing basic mechanisms that lead to unequal outcomes in recruitment and performance assessment: crouching myths; hidden bias: stereotypes in recruitment; employee assessment; and the workplace.

During a series of meetings for our management team — around identifying and responding to negative behaviors – we addressed topics such as mobbing and discrimination, microaggressions, health, and other topics related to equal treatment and company culture.
With cultural diversity workshops for hiring managers and recruiters, we commenced a more strategic approach to building intercultural competence across Netguru.

In the reporting period, we dedicated more time and focus to gender equality. In Netguru’s Road to Empowering Women, we describe our approach and challenges. We have also developed a diversity dashboard enabling us to better monitor our diversity data.

Within the salary review process, we made sure that parents are not left behind in getting a raise, even if they are on parental leave (the so-called “parental penalty”). We also support women returning from maternity leave with a dedicated onboarding program.

We continued our internal diversity and inclusion campaigns related to gender equality, cultural diversity, empowering the LGBT community, and building mental health awareness and resistance.

With almost 900 people onboard Netguru:
- 36% are women
- Women in top management constitute 38% and 50% of key directors
- 50% of board members are women
- 39% of leaders are women
- There are 54 foreigners in the team

Find out more: https://www.netguru.com/blog/netguru-road-to-empowering-women

Part of our ambition in the area of Environment (and our focus SDG number 13: Climate Action) is to spearhead digital environmental protection solutions.
We continue to calculate our CO2 emissions.

In the reporting period, we have also delivered a pro bono project for Need Energy – a dashboard solution for a company from Zimbabwe that focuses on increasing energy sustainability in Southern African countries by tracking energy usage and predicting future needs for both individual and commercial users. Find out more: https://www.netguru.com/featured/visualizing-data-machine-learning

Decreased our CO2 footprint per employee to 430 kg

In 2021:
- Emissions per employee were 430 kg (vs 600 kg in 2020)
- Our main emission sources were: energy usage in the offices (59%), power consumption of our laptops and monitors (19%), and cloud computing (10%)
- By the end of 2022, we plan to neutralize our CO2 footprint, for which we have established an internal task force and organized an external live streamed event Carbon - Offsetting – all you need to know before the start with experts to share with external audiences our journey to carbon neutrality

Being B Corp-certified and having signed the Declaration of Interdependence, we see our responsibility for how we act and with whom we work.

In the reporting period, we have finalized the process and guidelines for our Ethics Committee.

As a result, the Netguru Ethics Committee investigated nine ethical concerns related to our potential projects, the result of which was that we resigned from pursuing four of them due to ethics and/or bribery concerns.