Virgin Money launches app to help businesses improve their sustainability

Virgin Money has launched a new app designed to help businesses be more sustainable.

The Virgin Money Sustainable Business Coach is free for all UK businesses to use – not just those that are Virgin Money customers. 

It has been developed through partnerships with fintech data experts Life Moments and Future-Fit Foundation, a non-profit helping the transition to a society that is environmentally, socially and economically fair. The app provides an objective assessment of a business’ environmental, social and governance (ESG) impacts and gives advice on how to improve. 

As well as scoring businesses and giving them actions to take to improve, the Virgin Money Sustainable Business Coach has been designed to encourage businesses to track their progress over time. With growing requirements for companies to report on their environmental and social impact, the app is an easy first step to help businesses of any size to get started.

Virgin Money

Through the app, businesses with a good enough score will also be able to apply for a Sustainability-Linked Loan from Virgin Money. These reduce the cost of finance for businesses whose core activities enable others to operate in a more economically and environmentally sustainable way. Virgin Money is the first bank in Europe to offer such loans in commercial banking using an objective science-based methodology.

Graeme Sands, interim head of business banking, at Virgin Money, said: “We are committed to working with businesses to help them grow and thrive, and one area where many need support is on their ESG strategy. Businesses recognise the importance of sustainability to their long-term success but many, especially smaller firms, can face challenges getting started, setting targets and making positive progress.

“We designed the Sustainable Business Coach to help businesses with this process, giving them the information and guidance they need to operate more sustainably. It can be completed periodically, so becomes an effective benchmark to track progress over time. We have made the app available to any UK business, not just our customers, as work in the ESG space should be about collaboration and sharing best practice – we must all play our part in becoming more sustainable.”

The Virgin Money Sustainable Business Coach app is available to download from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store now. Visit Virgin Money to find out more.