Section 172 Statement

The Directors are required by the Companies Act 2006 to act in the way they consider, in good faith, would be most likely to promote success of the Company for the benefit of its shareholders as a whole. The Directors are aware of their obligations with regards to matters under Section 172, namely:

  • the likely long term consequences of any decision;
  • the interests of the Company’s employees;
  • the need to foster the Company’s business relationships with suppliers, customers and others;
  • the impact of the Company’s operations on the community and the environment;
  • the desirability of the Company maintaining a reputation for high standards of business conduct; and
  • the need to act fairly as between shareholders of the Company.

Long Term Consequences of any decision

Microlise is committed to conducting business with integrity, honesty and social responsibly as a central focus to its day to day operations. The business has worked hard to establish a Core Values framework that acts as the corner stone to our culture and code of conduct.

Our Core Values framework has been integrated into day to day working practices and aims to direct our people on how we should interact with our colleagues, our customers, our suppliers, the local community, and the wider environment as well as being a guide to how we recruit, appraise and reward our staff.

As a business, we challenge ourselves to develop smarter ideas and to constantly improve our technology to enable our customers to meet both business and sustainability goals. We reinvest in product innovation with an annual R&D spend of approximately £5m and have won a number of prestigious awards for our products and solutions.

Our technology delivered tangible results to approximately 90,000 HGVs in the UK during 2020 including many of the UK’s largest retailers, leading hauliers and third-party logistics providers. This contributes to positive impacts on environmental performance, improvements in air quality and urban environments while reducing consumption through intelligent planning and route optimisation. Other positive impacts include a reduction in accidents through improved driver behaviour and fewer vehicle breakdowns thanks to our vehicle health monitoring system. Cumulatively these products support reduced emissions, congestion and the negative societal impacts of both.

Employees

Microlise believes that its people are fundamental its success. Microlise has developed an early-stage talent programme via its Academy to bring new skills into the business through a Graduate and Apprenticeship scheme. To deliver Microlise’s commitment to lifelong learning and professional development, the Academy also serves existing staff and delivers a series of courses across the whole business spectrum.

Microlise actively promotes and encourages an open and honest culture of communication and engagement with its people. The business utilises a variety of forums to ensure its staff are kept informed of key developments, business performance and other issues which may affect their daily life both at work and in their personal lives. The business feels that this is particularly important as the business grows internationally and during a time where staff have been forced to work from home due to the impact of COVID-19.

Community and Environment

We actively encourage business-wide and employee support for local communities and good causes and have a Microlise Community Engagement group (MCE) to manage our business-wide initiatives. Our support extends from being a proud corporate sponsor to large charitable organisations such as Transaid to supporting local orphanages in India, providing sports kits to clubs, books and resources to primary schools, and supplying local food banks in and around Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire.

In conjunction with the Road Haulage Association, Microlise has created Road to Logistics, a not for profit, community interest company (CIC). Road to Logistics provides a national training programme to encourage new talent into the transport and logistics industry from sections of society where individuals need help and support. The UK road logistics industry relies heavily on its drivers and there is a shortage of approximately 60,000 drivers. The training programmes will help to close this shortage whilst supporting ex-offenders, the long-term unemployed and individuals from other disadvantaged backgrounds and support diversity in the industry by encouraging and supporting more woman entering the industry.

Good environmental practice and the impact that our operations have on the environment are of great importance to Microlise. The main aim of Microlise’s Environmental Policy is to comply with local, state and national environmental legislation in all jurisdictions in which we operate and to adopt responsible environmental practices. Microlise operate their facilities as efficiently as possible and all premises have light sensors and temperature control devices fitted.

Our products are designed and manufactured to take account of the recycling and disposal of the product at the end of its life cycle. Our businesses comply with The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations (“the WEEE Regulations”) and work in full compliance with The Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations 2004 (“the RoHS Regulations”). The environmental performance of Microlise continues to improve through our efforts in reducing energy consumption, reducing waste and greater recycling.

Customers and Suppliers

Microlise endeavours to be open and transparent in all its dealings across our supply chain extending from employees, through to customers, sub-contractors and suppliers.

We are committed to providing our customers with the highest quality products and we believe, the best method of meeting this commitment, is to build a strong relationship with likeminded suppliers who share our values and ethical standards, conducting business in a similar way to ours. Our supplier relationships are based on trust and transparency.

We also consider the ethical and environmental obligations of all activity including sourcing from reputable and sustainable suppliers and procuring as locally as possible, whenever possible.

Microlise has supplier assessment procedures in place to seek to maintain best practice standards.

High Standards, reputation, and business conduct.

As a business, Microlise is committed to delivering to a high standard and seeks to benchmark itself against internationally recognised standards. The business has held ISO9001 (quality management system) for a number years and can now add ISO2000 (IT Service Management) and also ISO27001 (Information Security Management System) to portfolio of accreditations.

Microlise expects that all of its business is conducted in compliance with high ethical standards of business practice. We apply these standards to all dealings with employees, customers, suppliers and other stakeholders.

Our Ethics Policy has been developed to ensure that Microlises business is conducted in adherence with high ethical and legal principles and sets standards of professionalism and integrity for all employees and operations.

The following is a summary of the Ethics Policy:

  • all employees have the right and responsibility to ensure that Microlise’s business is conducted with high ethical and legal principles;
  • our policy is to operate within applicable laws;
  • discrimination or harassment of any kind will not be tolerated;
  • as a matter of policy, we do not make political donations;
  • no bribes shall be given or received;
  • conflicts of interest must be avoided;
  • we aim to be a responsible partner within our local communities; and

COVID-19

At the date of signing the financial statements, Covid-19 represents a risk to the business and its people.

The business is taking active measures to ensure its people are safeguarded. All non essential staff have been working from home since the beginning of the pandemic and this policy will remain in place until such a time it is deemed safe to return to work. People that are required to return to work due to the nature of their job role are subject to a range of safety policies and procedures which include frequent temperature checks, frequent COVID 19 tests (Anti Gen and Anti Body), mandatory use of PPE and social distancing measures. The business has also introduced increased levels of cleaning and disinfecting activities.

The ongoing impact of Covid-19 on the business is under continual review to allow the business to respond to changes as and when necessary. The majority of our customer base have continued to operate as normal throughout the trading period, coupled with a business model that benefits from long term contracted revenues puts Microlise in a strong position.