Our Commitment
to ESG

Diligent is committed to carbon reduction and has pledged to reach Net Zero Carbon Emissions by 2040. As part of meeting this commitment, we have created and filled a leadership position to help coordinate efforts across our facilities and operations teams and throughout our supply chain. Currently, four of our six global headquarters meet LEED standards:

• Washington, DC – LEED Platinum 
• Vancouver, BC – LEED Gold
• Galway, Ireland – LEED Gold 
• Budapest, Hungary – LEED Platinum
• Sydney, Australia – NABERS 5 star rating (similar to LEED Gold) 

We believe in giving back to our customers, our communities and society in a variety of ways, including:

• Community service. We encourage our team members globally to actively engage in volunteer activities – including board service. We organize team volunteer events at our annual commercial team meeting and through a Diligent Global Day of Service with local partners in the communities where our teams live and work. 
• Sponsoring change. We are passionate about effecting positive change in governance and in the technology sector. And we are committed to providing financial support to causes that increase racial and gender diversity in corporate leadership. In the past year, we have supported nearly 20 organizations across our global community, including Black Girls CODE.
• Cutting-edge governance research. We leverage our reach across the global corporate governance community and our years of experience in the governance space to produce research on corporate governance practices, made available for free to the public through the Diligent Institute.

We believe that diverse leadership is essential to modern governance. Through Diligent’s Modern Leadership Initiative, we launched the Director Network – the largest and most diverse global database and social network of current and rising corporate directors. The Network facilitates filling open board and top executive roles with qualified candidates from across the spectrum of race, ethnicity, nationality, LGBTQ+ status, gender, age and expertise.

That said, as a company, Diligent also has work to do to move the needle, including being transparent about our diversity data. To help accelerate our progress on diversity, equity, inclusion and intersectionality, we have taken the following steps:

• Global Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Intersectionality Task Force: The civil unrest sparked by the killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, moved the global Diligent community to take decisive action against systemic racism and injustice. We established a global Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Intersectionality (DEII) task force to determine the steps the company should take to address inequality and injustice issues. This task force comprises of the key pillars of Education & Awareness, Communities, Policy & Programs and has an oversight charter and steering committee, along with executive sponsorship. The task force serves as the voice of our employees, helping to ensure that the ideas and initiatives that we push forward represent the diverse perspectives and needs of our team.
• DEII Resources & Education: To support the education of the internal team, facilitate dialogue and foster understanding, various resources have been made available. These include but are not limited to focus groups led by an external expert; building an intranet page for Anti-Racism and Racial Equity Learning Resources, supporting continuous conversation and educational resources; and running a 21-Week Challenge for our global team to focus on different learning topics through bite-sized multi-media content.
• DEII Capability: In early 2021, Diligent created and filled a new leadership position of Vice President of Talent and DEII to ensure that our talent programs reflect and prioritize DEII and to accelerate these initiatives. This includes the policies, programs and practices shaping talent acquisition, talent development and onboarding. This role sets and prioritizes goals, including diversity representation, fostering inclusivity and equity, establishing KPIs, and recommending policy changes.

As a partner with the World Economic Forum (WEF), Diligent is committed to implementing the WEF International Business Council’s “Measuring Stakeholder Capitalism” ESG metrics. In combination with the SASB framework, we will use these measures to determine which metrics to track, and how to report our progress back to our community.

Additionally, Diligent will continue to explore ways to ensure we are holding ourselves accountable and being transparent with our stakeholders about our advancements and areas for improvement. We are exploring the best way for Diligent’s board to oversee its ESG commitments and progress, for example, by tying executive compensation to meeting ESG goals and other non-financial metrics. While there is still much yet to be decided, we are on the path. Stay tuned for regular updates from Diligent about our ESG journey.