Entain champions diversity and carbon neutrality as new ESG objectives

Entain Plc has published its Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) 2020/2021 report, tracking the FTSE100 gambling group’s progress on its corporate charter and sustainability objectives. 

Establishing its new identity as Entain, in November 2020 the group launched its ‘Sustainability Charter outlining its ambitious plans to lead the ‘global gambling sector in an era of sustainability and corporate conduct’.

The charter is built on the four principles of – growth focused on regulated markets, leading gambling’s social responsibility directives, maintenance of best-in-class corporate management and investment in Entain’s workforce and local communities.

Spearheading its sustainability directives, Entain has formed a new ‘ESG Committee’ led by Virginia McDowell as chair, as the FTSE firm stated that sustainability targets are now ‘fully embedded’ in the firm’s corporate governance structure.

Updating stakeholders, McDowell acknowledged that Entain’s first-year charter objectives had confronted COVID-19 pandemic circumstances, in which the firm had to place its workforce and customer safety above all working directives.

“COVID-19 has caused unprecedented uncertainty, loss, and challenges to our communities and broader society,” McDowell remarked. “We responded with swift and coordinated action to protect our colleagues, customers and communities. We also were inspired by the hard work, resilience, and professionalism shown by our colleagues in the face of a challenging operating environment.”

Despite facing pandemic uncertainties, the ESG report cited that Entain had achieved progress on all four charter principles.

On its market approach, Entain currently maintains 99% of corporate revenues from regulated jurisdictions. It remains confident of achieving ‘all revenue target from licensed markets’ by 2023.  

2020/2021 safer gaming directives saw Entain launch its Advanced Responsibility & Care (ARC) across all group brands, a proprietary-built programme designed to ‘proactively intervene’ to prevent gambling risks.

Marked as an industry first, Entain’s ARC programme has been employed to maintain an appropriate safer betting and gaming metric to link employee remuneration with safer gambling practices.

Meanwhile, community directives saw the company progress on its ‘Entain Foundation’ commitments, including a guarantee to donate £100 million over the next five-years to social and sports grassroots projects across its operating markets.  

Operationally, Entain underscored its commitment to improving diversity and inclusivity standards across its global workplace practices – strengthened by a new governance plan led by Chairman Barry Gibson.

The group’s progress on workplace diversity and inclusion has been recognised, with Entain named as the industry-leading incumbent by the All-in Diversity Index for its well-rounded approach to D&I matters.

For the remainder of 2021, Entain stated that it will continue to work on accelerating the four principles of its corporate charter, which will be strengthened by the new group-wide ESG directives of:

• Developing the ARC programme to increase the support of research, education and treatment of problematic behaviour for all treatment stakeholders.
• The introduction of safer betting and gaming metric to account for 15% of 2021 bonus payments for all office-based employees.
• Accelerating the roll-out of investment in international projects from the Entain Foundation.
• Guaranteeing the ‘science-based target’ to be 100% corporate carbon net-zero by 2035.
• Expanding and evolving diversity and inclusivity practices across all levels of the group’s global workforce.

A transformed Entain has received widespread recognition for these efforts, having achieved AA status with leading ESG ratings agency MSCI, and through its continued membership of both FTSE4Good and the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices. 

“The past year has seen ESG matters embedded at the heart of our operations,” McDowell concluded. “We are committed to taking a leading role in supporting the communities in which we operate, creating the safest possible betting and gaming platform, and in doing so, making Entain the best place to work for all of our people.

“By delivering on this ambition, we will create long-term, sustainable growth for all of our stakeholders.”