Impact reports > 2023 Impact report
2023
Impact Report
Our journey this year
Foreword
I’m very pleased to share our latest Impact Report. Looking back on 2023, I’m proud of what we have achieved at erjjio and I look forward to continuing our mission during 2024.
In particular, I’m delighted that we are now at the final stage of our B Corp certification process and we’re all looking forward to reaching the finish line very soon. It has been a long and challenging journey, but extremely worthwhile.
I’m a strong believer in the importance of courage and determination in the pursuit of goals, whether that be in business or life in general. When times get tough, we must dig deep - and have the courage and determination to keep going. The planet continues to face enormous challenges with climate and biodiversity, but we must continue to hope for a better future. I’m feeling encouraged that the B Corp movement has continued to accelerate during 2023, with nearly 8,000 global businesses now certified and working to demonstrate that an inclusive, equitable and regenerative economy is possible, if we put our minds to it. If you haven’t yet started your own B Corp journey, I strongly encourage you to do so.
Whilst we’ve made great progress this year, there’s always more to be done. I look forward to raising the bar and holding ourselves accountable to even higher standards in 2024.
I hope you've made strong progress this year too.
Let's dig deep, and keep going.
Ben Clifford
Founder & Managing Director
Our purpose
At erjjio, we believe in using business as a force for good, for people and the planet. Ultimately, our vision is to create:
A sustainable world, in which we lead fun and fulfilling lives
Our mission through which we strive to achieve that vision, is to:
Radically reduce the Internet’s environmental impact by creating low-carbon websites powered by 100% renewable energy
For our planet
UN Sustainable Development Goals
As always, taking action on climate change is at the heart of our mission, with a particular focus on the transition to renewable energy in data centres and a reduction of the Internet’s environmental impact. This focus aligns with #13 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) - “Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts”.
“Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.”
Website carbon
The average homepage carbon emission figure for client sites we created during 2023 was again 0.2 grams per page view, which is 75% lower than the global average of 0.8 grams for web pages tested at websitecarbon.com (their previous average was reported as 0.5 in 2022 and we were 60% lower than that on average, during 2022).
Carbon emission per page view
0.2 g
lower than average
75%
Data centre partnership evolution
Prior to this year, our erjjio servers were hosted in a UK data centre in Hemel Hempstead owned by a global data centre operator called NTT. During 2023, NTT announced that this data centre would be wound down. In light of this and as part of a broader data centre strategy review, we moved our servers to an alternative data centre operator called Netwise, in their brand new London East location.
This new data centre offers a number of key benefits:
- A continued commitment to the use of 100% renewable electricity
- On-site solar power generation expected to be online within the next 12-18 months
- World leading PUE of 1.05 (the key measure of energy efficiency for data centres)
- Ultra-efficient, innovative cooling systems
- Security certified with ISO 27001:2013
Tree planting
Through our ongoing partnership with Eden Reforestation Projects, during 2023 we planted 4,119 trees on behalf of our clients, up very slightly by 1% from 4,094 in 2022, bringing our all time total trees planted to 17,414.
4,119
trees planted
Travel and co-working
During 2023 our entire team continued to work either from home, or within walking distance of our co-working space called Second Home London Fields, in Hackney (East London). Second Home is a Certified B Corp which shares our commitment to people, planet and renewable energy. All client meetings usually take place online, and when we occasionally attend London business events, we travel using local public transport. We therefore have an extremely low carbon footprint from travel.
Global Good Awards sponsorship
We are proud to have sponsored the Tech for Good category of the Global Good Awards for the 4th year running (including the provision of green hosting for their website). Founded in 2015, the GGA awards reward businesses, NGOs, charities and social enterprises of all shapes and sizes around the world, that are blazing the trail for purpose-driven sustainability and ethical leadership. They recognise leaders who are achieving practical, real-world impact that is both scalable and replicable – and who have inspiring stories to tell.
For our people
Team happiness
At the end of every year, we survey our whole team and ask for their feedback about what’s going well, what we should work on improving, and how happy they are in their role (out of 10). In 2023, the average happiness score was 92% (9.2 out of 10), which was the same as 2022. Team happiness is very important to us and while we’re proud of this result, we hope to move it even closer to 10 in next year’s survey.
Gender diversity
Our team of 8 people (including full-time and part-time) remained the same as in 2022; the gender split is currently 50% female and 50% male.
50/50
Ethnicity
Southeast Asian
White British
South Asian
Volunteering
We have a paid-time-off volunteering policy in place and encourage our team members to get involved in local projects, particularly those relating to the environment. Unfortunately as a team we did not manage to put this into action during 2023, however we will continue to work on this goal during 2024.
Healthcare
Since 2021, all core team members in our Philippines location have been provided with a comprehensive benefits package, including high-end private healthcare insurance, dental coverage and social security contribution matching.
Team growth
During 2023 our team size remained the same as in 2022, at 8 people in total; there was zero attrition. During 2024 and beyond we hope to grow the team further, and to support the community in London by offering opportunities to the local workforce too.
Clients and growth
Top clients
by revenue
Our top 5 clients by revenue in 2023 were 3 sustainability consultancies called Planet Mark, JustOne and Envision, and 2 nonprofit organisations called Barking & Dagenham Giving and the Institute of Fire Safety Manager (IFSM).
Client sector
breakdown
We are selective about the organisations we work with (as described in our Code of Ethics policy), and we aim for all accepted clients to share our commitment to environmental sustainability.
Some of our clients are particularly purpose-driven, such as sustainability consultancies and B Corp companies, and our breakdown for 2023 is shown below. “Standard businesses” are clients that don’t directly have an environmental or social purpose at the core of their mission, but are nonetheless likely to include sustainability as an important element of their values.
The total proportion of our revenue coming from purpose-driven businesses, charities and nonprofits in 2023 was 76%, which is substantially up from 54% in 2022. The proportion of “standard” clients by number (which is very similar to the previous figure of 68% in our 2022 breakdown) is relatively large because many of these are ongoing hosting and / or maintenance clients, whereas the majority of our annual revenue each year is generated from web design / development projects.
Clients by number
Clients by revenue
Clients by revenue
Supporting charity work in Gaza
During 2022, we began working with the Palestinian charity Welfare Association and we were deeply saddened to observe the escalation of conflict in Gaza towards the end of 2023. We remain committed to supporting their crucial efforts to provide aid to those in need, with over 1 million people in Gaza now facing catastrophic levels of food insecurity and famine. We encourage you to donate to their emergency appeal if you can.
Revenue growth
Our top-line growth was strong again, with revenue up by 51% compared to 2022. Our previous year-on-year growth figure was 40%.
Looking to the future
We are proud of what we have achieved during 2023, but there is always room for improvement and we strive to improve further next year. Our goals for 2024 will include the below focus areas.
B Corp certification
Having successfully passed the Evaluation stage of the certification process in August this year, we are currently looking forward to the final Verification stage. We were hoping that this would be completed before the end of 2023, but our wait in the Verification Queue has taken a little longer than hoped and we now expect to reach the front of the queue at the start of 2024. All being well, we will pass this stage successfully and achieve our certification very soon!
Community
We have recently been in discussions with a local organisation in Hackney which provides education and training opportunities for local young people looking to begin their careers in tech and digital services. We plan to offer work experience opportunities for these young people as part of our goals to give back and support the local community.
Carbon emissions
As a very low-carbon business already, our focus in the past has primarily been on the measurement and reduction of website carbon emissions - and we look forward to innovating our techniques further during 2024 as part of the new Website Carbon Rating system described in this report.
However, we recognise the importance of also formally tracking the carbon emissions of our business as a whole, and in 2023 we aimed to begin tracking this in earnest, however unfortunately we haven’t quite managed to put this plan into action yet. We will continue working on this during 2024.
Volunteering
We aim for the whole erjjio team to get involved in local volunteering projects, using paid days off from work. Projects will ideally be of an environmental nature, such as local tree planting.
Onwards!
