Our Impact
At Thankyou Payroll, we believe there is a better way to do business that goes beyond a focus on payroll and profit – leaving a lasting positive impact in the world around us.
From Shareholders to Aotearoa
Over the next six years, Thankyou Payroll will be undertaking our biggest impact initiative yet – a transition to Steward Ownership. A first for NZ, we’re transitioning all ownership of Thankyou Payroll from our shareholders to Generous Ventures — a charitable trust aiming to deliver lasting and meaningful outcomes for Aotearoa New Zealand. This transformation will see an estimated $1-2m invested annually into shaping a brighter future for the people of our country.
Looking after our people
As a purpose driven business, we’re 100% behind supporting others beyond ourselves. Our actions are your actions and together, we’re helping to make good things happen in communities all around Aotearoa New Zealand.
Our goals
To inspire generosity amongst other kiwis and businesses, building an engaged and connected community of people making good things happen along the way.
To support and enable small kiwi businesses to grow and evolve.
To create an environment where our customers and employees feel supported and encouraged.
To pay it forward to our local communities, creating lasting positive change and forming meaningful long-term relationships.
Our actions
Free for charities
We admire the awesome work that kiwi charities do to support communities across Aotearoa New Zealand. This is why Thankyou Payroll offers all registered charities in NZ free access to our payroll software and services – a small part we can play to allow them to focus on the work that matters.
Thankyou Charitable Trust
An important member of the Thankyou Payroll whānau is the Thankyou Charitable Trust; an organisation supporting communities to grow their resilience, connectedness, well-being and sustainability. They put the purpose into our payroll service, investing a portion of our profits each year to create a positive impact in communities across Aotearoa New Zealand.
Living Wage Employer
At Thankyou Payroll, we take care of our staff – so that they can take care of you. We’re proud to be an accredited Living Wage Employer; ensuring that all of our staff can live comfortably and sustainably.
Volunteering
Paying it forward isn’t always about money – we love engaging with local communities and getting our hands dirty whenever we can too. Every year, we hold a number of staff volunteer days. It’s a chance for our staff to get together, share quality time and give back to our community.
Payrolling it forward
Generosity is at the heart of what we do and we make it easy for you to give too! Employees can easily donate to any registered charity in NZ – directly from your paycheck. You’ll receive an instant tax rebate too. It’s a small gesture that can go a long way.
Looking after our planet
Restoring the health of our planet is fundamental to everything we do. We believe in a sustainable future and we take action – every day – to work towards this. In fact, we offset 120% of our emissions, making us Aotearoa New Zealand’s only Carbon Positive PAYE Intermediary.
The road to being a zero emissions business
Our planet is struggling right now. Climate change continues to threaten the security of our food, our health, and our homes at an accelerating rate. We have an opportunity to turn this around; working together to leave a lasting positive impact on the world around us.
As part of the 2019 Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act, the Government is also set to establish an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) for businesses by 2025. This means we will pay for the emissions we use, providing an incentive towards reduction goals.
The road to being a zero emissions business isn’t easy riding – there’s a hill to climb and we still have a way to go. We all do.
Our goals
Keep our Scope 1 emissions at zero and Scope 2 emissions as close to zero as possible – offsetting our remaining emissions. See our 2022/2023 Emissions Report for more information on what these Scopes are and our current emissions.
To focus on waste reduction, energy efficiency, and travel optimisation – our biggest sources of Scope 3 carbon emissions.
To continue to grow our network of sustainable suppliers and partners.
To become a leader in sustainable business, inspiring better practices amongst other kiwi business owners along the way.
To encourage our staff to act sustainably both in the office and at home.
Our actions
Low-carbon commuting
We strongly encourage our team to use public transport, electric vehicles, bike, or walk to work. In the 2021/22 financial year, this accounted for 20% of our staff’s commute to work. In the coming months, we will also be offering our staff interest free e-bike loans to further incentivise eco-friendly travel.
Flexible working
Since the pandemic, working from home has become a new normal for many businesses. We support our team to find a balance that works for them. With our staff working from home 50% of the time, we’ve seen a substantial reduction in our carbon emissions.
Internal education
We regularly engage our team with what we are doing to work towards a more sustainable future. This gives our staff the opportunity to share their knowledge to craft solutions. It also helps educate and mentor our team on the steps they can take to reduce their carbon footprint.
Recycling & waste management
We encourage our team to establish good recycling habits and embed this with an in-house waste audit to keep track of what we throw out. We also have a take home compost roster in our Dunedin office – which will be introduced in our Wellington office shortly.
Sustainable partners & suppliers
We carefully handpick the companies we work with based on their commitment to a sustainable future.
Here’s a list of some of the awesome companies we work with.
- Meridian generates power from 100% renewable sources
- The Print Room – our go-to supplier for sustainable printing.
- Cargills Enterprises – an e-waste disposal facility unlocking the potential of people with disabilities, empowering them to live purposeful lives through gainful employment.
- Peoples Coffee – A certified B Corp providing us with delicious coffee, delivered by e-bike.
- Stand Desk – supply us with top of the range desks and donate 1% of their revenue to environmental causes every year.
Our partnerships
Climate Leaders Coalition
Thankyou Payroll is a signatory of the NZ Climate Leaders Coalition (CLC); an organisation working to accelerate business action on climate change in Aotearoa New Zealand.
The CLC set the standards for what business leadership on climate action should look like. As a signatory, we’re required to measure, report and reduce our emissions as well as to work with our suppliers to reduce their emissions. For more details on what is expected of us as a signatory, you can check out their latest Statement of Ambition.
Ekos
Thankyou Payroll is certified by Ekos; experts in carbon calculating and offsetting. We track all of our business-related emissions and they crunch the numbers so we know how much to offset.
This year (2023) we are offsetting 120% of our emissions through the Rameka Forest Carbon Project in New Zealand and the Drawa Rainforest Conservation Project in Fiji.
Sustainable Business Network
Thankyou Payroll is a proud member of the Sustainable Business Network. This network of kiwi organisations enables system change in the areas of climate, waste and nature – working together to make good things happen.
Our risks
As a signatory to the NZ Climate Leaders Coalition, we are committed to assessing and disclosing climate change risks to our everyday operations. This holds us accountable for implementing actions to reduce these risks.
Extreme weather events
Increasing frequency of extreme weather events will disrupt our clients’ operations, and therefore payroll processing. This may lead to long-term business closures. Infrastructure we are reliant on, like internet fibre and data centres, could be physically disrupted too.
In the short term, we will be moving from a physical data centre located near sea level, to a cloud based (AWS) system.
Sea level rise
Rising sea levels will impact key infrastructure like roads and ports, for our major cities and communities at/near sea level. This will cause loss of access for both our clients and business, impacting our ability to get to work at our offices. Supply chains will also be heavily impacted which will have financial implications due to increased cost of products we are reliant on e.g. laptops.
We have a flexible working from home policy which can be used as a mitigation tool when office access is impacted.
Health risk
There is a risk to the mental health/hauora of employees who have trauma from repeated weather events and sea level rise.
We have recently implemented a Hauora leave policy that has 20 days of leave available to staff as well as other discretionary leave available for traumatic events.
Financial risk
Thankyou Payroll manages funds on behalf of our clients, which could be impacted by instability of the financial system due to extreme weather events and ongoing, gradual climate changes. There is a risk that our customer base diminishes as clients can no longer operate due to the flow on effects of this.
Reputational risk
There is a reputational risk if we do nothing or less than what is expected of us as a social enterprise that includes looking after people and the environment as part of our core business ethos/strategy.
We made a commitment to be carbon positive several years ago and have our carbon emissions measured, audited and certified by Ekos. Additionally we are signatories of the CLC and we monitor and review our emissions monthly via Carbontrail and use this information to inform sustainability and procurement practice and policies.
Thankyou Payroll emissions report
(2022/2023 financial year)
Scope 1
Direct emissions from sources owned or controlled by the organisation (ie, within the organisational boundary). For example, emissions from vehicles owned or controlled by the business, onsite landfills, wastewater treatment, agriculture, and fuel combustion from factories.
0 tCO2e
Scope 2
Indirect emissions from the generation of purchased energy (in the form of electricity, heat or steam) that the organisation uses.
0.98 (1) tCO2e
Scope 3
Other indirect emissions occurring because of the activities of the organisation but generated from sources it does not own or control (eg, air travel, non-company vehicles, waste, freight, staff commutes etc).
29.4 tCO2e
Total Emissions
The combined total of Thankyou Payroll’s Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions.
30.4 tCO2e
Carbon Offsets
The reduction in emissions made by Thankyou Payroll to compensate for our own emissions. We offset 120% of our emissions, making us a carbon-positive organisation.
37 tCO2e
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