In doing so we want to ensure that the net effect of our business on our customers, our colleagues, and the wider community is a positive one. To fulfil this ambition we are committed to ethical, sustainable, and well-governed business practices that take account of our responsibilities to manage the social, economic, and environmental impacts of our activities.
As an FCA-regulated business, good governance is at the heart of everything we do. This includes our approach to CSR and ESG which is delivered through a carefully designed policy framework and KPIs, and underpinned by our corporate culture and values. Our progress on ESG is monitored regularly, reported to the Board, and published in our Annual Report.
Our CSR & ESG framework focuses on 5 pillars, around which we focus activities throughout the year, as well as tracking a range of KPIs to ensure we are improving our ESG posture over time. Our ESG pillars are:
Customers are our primary focus.
Results matter, create value everyday.
Energy is contagious, share it!
Developing our people makes us different.
Invent the solution, be proactive.
Together we can build the business.
Rather than relying on traditional products, we’re always open to new ideas and use our scale in niche markets to develop solutions that match the specific needs of our clients.
We don’t ever let complexity get in the way of a competitively-priced loan. Although our talented underwriters use impressive technology to inform their decisions, they also use experience and common sense to make sure they reach the right outcomes.
With a team of dedicated, experienced professionals, our compliance team is instrumental in keeping our products and services in line with the latest rules and regulations.
Like any successful business, our people are at the heart of everything we do, which is why we go out of our way to employ the very best in the industry.
Our state-of-the-art IT platforms make it effortless for brokers to understand their options, track applications and pass on real-time updates to their clients.
Having traded successfully over a period of many years through the turbulence of the 2008 financial crisis, Brexit, and COVID, we are committed to exercising prudent and intelligent management of risk to ensure we can continue to support our customers for many years to come.
The Women in Finance Charter was introduced following the 'Empowering Productivity' report into harnessing the talents of women in finance. It is a commitment by HM Treasury and signatory firms to work together to build a more balanced and fairer financial services industry. This review focused on the talent pipeline at the executive population below board level and found that in 2015, women made up only 14% of the Executive Committees in the Financial Services sector.
The Charter reflects the government’s aspiration to see gender balance at all levels across financial services firms. A balanced workforce is good for business – it is good for customers, for profitability, productivity, and workplace culture, and is increasingly attractive for investors.
In 2019 Enra Specialist Finance proudly signed the charter to underline its existing commitment supporting the progression of women into senior roles in the financial services sector.
When we joined the Charter in 2019, we wanted to increase our gender diversity to 33% within the senior management population by September 2023. As of December 2023, we have 27% female representation in senior management.
We chose the target of 33% as we wanted a target that represented meaningful difference being delivered within the bounds of what is reasonable given the low turnover in the senior management group.
Our target requires 2 existing male members of the senior management team to be replaced by females, or alternatively for us to hire 3 additional females into the senior management team by 2025.
This is possible but stretching, given the growth ambitions of the firm, and the low level of management turnover anticipated, but it would represent a meaningful difference to the status quo.
To achieve this we have already taken a series of practical steps to ensure the firm is measuring & monitoring diversity, actively seeking female candidates for shortlists when vacancies arise and seeking to bring our diversity policy into the heart of our business by establishing a colleague-led ESG forum.
We are committed to maximising the opportunity for all candidates and ensuring that Enra is a welcoming place of work for everyone.
Enra Specialist Finance is committed to supporting charities that positively impact individuals, the environment, and our local community.
We have been supporting Spread a Smile as our lead charity for over 6 years during this time we have raised money, supported events and hosted activities to support the phenomenal work the team do.
Spread a smile
Food for All (Watford branch) is our local food bank and community kitchen located within 2 miles of our new office facility. When we moved into the local area, we made a commitment to give back to our local community and we found this amazing organisation.
Food for allHowever, we are committed to ensuring that we take steps to reduce our overall impact on the environment wherever we can. To that end, each year we measure our impact and report this in our annual report. The primary driver of our emissions is the energy consumption within our office, with a secondary driver being the emissions from our grey fleet. We are actively exploring ways to reduce our environmental impact, including increasing our recycling capability, paper-saving and power-saving options within the office, and car-pooling to reduce grey fleet emissions.
As a specialist lender we are also keen to promote more environmentally sustainable properties through our lending activities. To that end our Development Finance team regularly work with developers using cutting-edge sustainable building practices. Our Buy-to-Let and Residential lending teams also offer specialist products with incentives for properties with an EPC-rating of “C” and above.