- Better for Customers
- Better Ethics & Understanding
- Better for Society
- Responsible Business
- Environment
How we’re doing: sustainability snapshot from 2022
Better for Customers
- 2 million customers became debt-free with Lowell in 2022.
- 99% Group client customer treatment score (that’s up 2%).
- 97% of colleagues across the UK and Nordics completed mandatory training on helping customers in vulnerable situations.
- We launched our Benefits Calculator in the UK with input from our Customer Panel.
See the 2022 Sustainability Report
See the 2022 Performance Scorecard
See the 2022 SASB Index
How are we better for customers?
The data we capture from helping millions of people pay off their Lowell debts has given us unrivalled insights into debt’s impact on mental health, family relationships, and daily life.
Our social aim of helping build customers’ financial understanding, rehabilitating them back into mainstream credit, goes hand-in-hand with our commercial objective of debt collection.
In the UK, we also provide online resources, signposting, an informative app, a benefits calculator, and free access to a credit score checker to help customers develop financial confidence.
We encourage and value customer feedback
When it comes to listening to customers, we’ve found that the better we understand our interaction, the stronger the connection we can build with them.
Customer feedback
We capture customer feedback in several different ways across our regions.
In the UK, for example, we launched a new world-class customer feedback platform in 2023. The Medallia Experience Cloud captures more data and insights than ever before, which we use to inform business decisions, client reporting, and employee training.
The increased visibility of the customer experience that the platform offers also helps colleagues appreciate the positive impact their support has on customers.
The UK Customer Panel
The advice and insight we get from listening to the 3,500 customers on our UK Customer Panel is invaluable. Amongst other things, we use the Panel to build our understanding of the circumstances that lead people into debt, to test the effectiveness of our written communications, and to trial changes to our digital channels before rollout.
We’re proud that our customers make a real difference to how we work, and we’re humbled by their commitment and enthusiasm.
Helping people and encouraging them to get help is the biggest incentive to do this for me. Just being there to help others. It’s worth 20 minutes of my time – even if it was longer, it would be worth it.
We help customers on the road to financial wellbeing
Better financial understanding helps to build greater resilience, so we support our customers with a set of sector-leading tools and services that’ll help them build their financial knowledge.
We help people check what benefits they’re entitled to
Every year, £19 billion of benefits in the UK go unclaimed. Our benefits calculator helps people check if they’re missing out on money that could help them get out of debt. And if they need support making a claim, we can signpost them to more resources from third party organisations.
We work with partner organisations to help people improve their financial health
In the UK, through our partnership with Snoop, we provide customers with a free money management app that helps them track spending, set budgets, and control finances. In the DACH region, Fabit is a digital money management app to help people become financially fitter.
We help people better understand their financial situation
We give customers free access to their credit files to help build their financial understanding.
We provide online support and FAQs for people to help themselves
Each region has its own local support articles, signposting, and FAQs based on common regional queries and call drivers.
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How we're doing: sustainability snapshot from 2022
Better Ethics & Understanding
- Group Colleague Engagement score up four points to 73
- 79% Group Colleague Engagement survey response rate (down 1%)
- 97% of eligible employees completed Group Code of Conduct and People Policy training.
- We launched our Employer Value Proposition, ‘Together We Go Further’.
- We introduced our hybrid-working principles.
- Our Group Client Satisfaction score of 8.2 confirmed our status as a trusted partner.
See the 2022 Sustainability Report
See the 2022 Performance Scorecard
See the 2022 SASB Index
How are we promoting better ethics and understanding?
Lowell isn’t just another debt company, it’s an ethical company that strives to make credit work better for all.
We’re at the forefront of the campaign to improve debt collection standards in the UK.
We’re determined to stamp out the stigma of debt. And we’re passionate about improving financial inclusion across society, helping to bring stability to the lives of the most financially vulnerable.
We’re leading the way
We take a prominent leadership role within our sector, working closely with peers and regulators to set standards for fair collections, develop codes of conduct for the industry, and influence policy makers through our wide-ranging research and unrivalled data gathering abilities.
Unique amongst our peers, our research ability, advocacy, insights, and data are in line with those found in mature, international financial services companies. As a Group, we have over 10 million customers. And in the UK alone, we have a past/present relationship with one in five adults.
We’re a member of the debt collection associations of every country we work in
We’re an affiliate member and sponsor of the Federation of European National Collection Associations (FENCA). In the UK, we work closely with our industry trade body, the Credit Services Association (CSA), and we’re members of the Enforcement Conduct Board (ECB) and the Institute of Customer Services (ICS). We are members of the BDIU (Federal Association of Germany Debt Collection Companies) in DACH, the Associations for Finnish, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish debt collection companies, and the Association of Trade Services in Norway.
We help fund free independent debt advice in the UK
We’re members of the Money Advice Trust’s Vulnerability Academy and the Collaboration Network, which help fund the UK’s free debt advice sector. In 2022, we contributed £3.2 million through Fair Share contribution, helping to make free independent debt support available to those in need.
We’re using our leadership status to tackle the stigma of debt
People struggling with problem debt often feel a sense of shame and embarrassment.
We believe this is unfair and unwarranted, which is why we’re working with clients, partners, and charities to rehabilitate the image of debt.
We’re exploring new ways to share best practice and knowledge with clients, helping to build stronger, more resilient relationships. One way we do this is through client webinars covering topics of interest such as changes in collection legislation, collection of private receivables, private person debt restructuring, and debt purchase.
We talk to the government, charities, and organisations like the Centre for Social Justice about helping customers in vulnerable situations; the need for statutory breathing space; the value of sustainability; and financial abuse.
We launched the UK’s first Financial Vulnerability Index
We use this innovative tool to measure and track financial resilience, nationally and locally, across the UK. It brings together publicly available measures and Lowell’s proprietary data to paint a clear picture of financial vulnerability in the UK, giving users valuable insight into the financial health of people across the country.
Go to the Financial Vulnerability Index
We need to look at radical change, over the course of people’s lives, to ensure that everyone has the skills to manage their money and navigate modern financial products. We need to build proper financial resilience.
We’re supporting better financial education
A report from the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), funded by Lowell, showed that a significant portion of the UK’s population lacks financial literacy and money management skills. Nearly 14 million adults with experience of financial problems believe that low money management skills had contributed to their plight.
Our Financial Vulnerability Index backs this up. It also identified poor financial education as a key driver of financial vulnerability, with 68% of young people saying a lack of money management skills was driving them into debt.
We teamed up with the CSJ to launch the Financial Education Initiative, to gather data about the changing financial landscape, examine levels of financial literacy, review financial education and make recommendations to government.
And we’re partnering with The Money Charity, which helps people to manage their money well, on a pilot scheme to provide combined parent/child financial literacy education.
We engage our colleagues to build trust
Trust is vital in our industry. But we can’t just claim it – we need to earn it. We do this through ethical behaviour and engaged colleagues.
We’re proud of our 2022 79% Group Colleague Engagement survey response rate and our Group Colleague Engagement score of 73. We believe this both reflects and confirms our approach of listening to colleagues and adapting what we do to support their needs.
Our values
Our five values are behind every decision we make at Lowell:- Pioneering. We are pioneering, always looking for innovative ways to work.
- Ambitious. We’re ambitious, leading the way for others to follow.
- Compassionate. We’re compassionate, helpful, principled, and fair in everything we do.
- Excellence. We work together to exceed expectations and deliver the best possible outcomes.
- Responsibility. We take responsibility for our failures and recognise our colleagues’ successes.
Our Values are a promise to our colleagues
Our colleagues build the trust our customers, clients, and communities hold in Lowell.
In return, we invest in the safety, happiness, and careers of our colleagues. Our commitments are set out in our hybrid working principles, Group Code of Conduct and People Policies, and in a range of regional policies covering wellbeing, health, and safety.
Our Nordics Manifesto
There are almost 400,000 over-indebted people in Finland, with indebtedness increasing in Denmark and Sweden too. In our Nordics Manifesto, we argue that public policy should deliver the following outcomes:
- a common national debt register (or a positive credit information register)
- include personal finance in the curriculum for secondary schools and better advice for the public in general
- municipalities and welfare regions should not collect customer fees from those who are unable to pay
- a voluntary blocking service for new consumer loans
- break the silence around financial distress.
Across the Nordic region, we continue to promote steps towards such outcomes with, for example, specific client support, simpler language in letters to customers about debt recovery, and an educational guide about the credit cycle for teachers in secondary schools.
How we’re doing: sustainability snapshot from 2022
Better for Society
- Raised consumer awareness of financial issues and the support available, reaching over 11.5 million people in the UK alone (this was 1.5 million more than last year).
- Our colleague engagement score for being ‘happy at work’ rose 4 points to 75 (hitting our 2025 target three years early!).
- 80% of colleagues believe everyone at Lowell has an equal opportunity to succeed, regardless of their background (up 3 points on last year).
- We’ve lined up female potential successors for 42% of senior leadership roles.
- 54% of colleagues had the opportunity to volunteer using Lowell time (we expect this to rise to 100% by December 2023).
- 80% of colleagues believe that, regardless of background, everyone at Lowell has equal opportunity to succeed (up from 75% in 2021).
See the 2022 Sustainability Report
See the 2022 Performance Scorecard
See the 2022 SASB Index
How are we better for society?
We’re not just determined to help people move out of debt, we want to use our position, insight, and influence to help create a stronger society. We believe that by promoting financial wellbeing, providing inclusive employment opportunities, and pitching in with our communities, we can help build a strong, resilient business and a fairer society.
We’re helping people better understand debt
We’re expanding awareness and understanding of debt within society, helping to grow people’s financial knowledge and skills.
Normalising the conversation about debt
We want to take the stigma out of the ‘D’ word. As well as bringing debt issues out into the open and championing financial education, we see an essential element of our role as ensuring that people struggling with debt know that they are not alone.
Consumer research in the UK and DACH
Our commissioned research across the UK and DACH, has revealed that financial topics dominate mainstream media and come up repeatedly in Google searches. People are hungry for information about the problems surrounding debt, the cost-of-living crisis, and how to manage family finances.
We continue to run campaigns designed to encourage conversation about debt and to give people practical hints and tips about how to weather the financial storm.
Worries vary across the regions
Since 2017, the Lowell Financial Vulnerability Index (FVI) has been providing data to help describe the financial health of the UK. As we can tailor the data down to parliamentary constituency level, the FVI has proved to be a rigorous policy advocacy tool for us.
Our research and a study by the National Financial Educator’s Council shows that poor financial education in the UK is a key driver of financial vulnerability.
For example, in 2023 nearly one fifth of adults worried about being able to afford to feed their children during school holidays. 46% of adults acknowledged their poor financial knowledge resulted in them suffering financial ill health.
People in DACH have a different relationship with debt. Our research shows that debt is normal for most young people. There, while debt is socially acceptable and doesn’t carry the taboo that it does in the UK, 80% of people are in favour of more financial education in schools.
To address this financial knowledge gap, we translated our findings into campaigns across the UK and DACH, such as our ‘Money 101’ and ‘Family Finance’ campaigns, reaching an estimated 10 million people. In the DACH region, we also converted our findings into educational YouTube videos and podcasts. Over 1.5 million consumers explored topics including the psychological impacts of debt; younger generations and debt; and people’s beliefs about buying on credit.
Enduring partnership with the Centre of Social Justice
Working closely with the CSJ has enabled us to gather rich data about the changing landscape of financial education across the UK. Together, we continue to engage with the Government to influence policy on education and financial literacy amongst young people.
Gender equality
As a leading European credit management services provider, Lowell is committed to providing a respectful, inclusive environment and a working culture that is productive, positive, and fair for all our colleagues.
We are enthusiastic advocates for gender equality, believing that a balanced workforce at all levels of the company is essential in building a strong, resilient, and profitable business.
Gender balance across senior management roles is a key goal for us, which is why we’re currently focusing on finding female successors for leadership roles.
We are also steadily removing legacy gender barriers by changing our policies on maternity (and parental) pay and conditions, reward, and part-time working.
We are signatories of the Women in Finance charter in the UK and the Charta der Vielfalt in DACH.
We create happy workplaces
We want everyone at Lowell to feel valued, welcome, and excited to be here. And one way we do that is to create opportunities for people to grow and develop their skills, giving them the tools and experience they need to build rewarding and challenging careers throughout the business.
We support colleagues’ personal and professional growth with our Learning and Development strategy. Talent Forums help us spot and develop highfliers and bright sparks. All our colleagues enjoy attractive benefits packages, hybrid working options, and opportunities to give something back to the community through volunteering.
Lowell is a place where people can thrive.
We’re a welcoming, inclusive, and diverse community of unique individuals
We celebrate difference at Lowell. We know that teams are stronger when they include ideas and viewpoints from a diverse range of people. Ideas fuelled by different experiences; viewpoints forged from a variety of perspectives. That’s why we’re so ambitious to build an inclusive culture.
We encourage people to be themselves, to bring their personality to work. No matter what your ethnicity, religion, background, gender, or any other characteris tic, you’re welcome at Lowell.
Diversity makes us stronger
- We believe it takes diversity of culture, background, experience, and perspective to make a better society.
- We want Lowell to be a community where everyone can excel in an environment that embraces their uniqueness.
- We are committed to raising awareness of the importance of diversity and creating an inclusive culture.
- We recognise that we do not all start from the same place and that we must make adjustments to address imbalances.
- We know diversity drives innovation and improves what we do for our customers, clients, and the communities we work in.
Giving back to the community
We believe we have a responsibility to the communities we serve.
Our colleagues have a keen sense of wanting to do good. For many of us, working for Lowell isn’t just a job, it’s a way we can do something important – to help make life better for people going through a tough time.
We also contribute to the wellbeing of our communities
We give our colleagues across the UK, DACH, and the Nordics regions an annual (paid) Volunteering Day when they can support the causes they care about. It’s all part of our mission: to make credit work better for all. As a business, we also donate to various charities, including matching funds raised by colleagues. These include organisations that:
- Supply financial education services.
- Help people get out of poverty.
- Care for the homeless.
- Provide food parcels.
- Support people with mental health issues.
How we’re doing: sustainability snapshot from 2022
Responsible Business
- 95% of colleagues completed training on data security, protection, and privacy.
- Our top 60 senior managers each have a performance objective to support our Sustainability and Diversity & Inclusion agenda.
- We joined the UN Global Compact.
See the 2022 Sustainability Report
See the 2022 Performance Scorecard
See the 2022 SASB Index
How are we a responsible business?
As you would expect from Europe’s leading credit management company, we uphold the highest standards of risk management, corporate governance, and ethical conduct. We’re at the forefront of a highly regulated industry.
Governance
You’ll find our full governance framework and descriptions of all our Board Committees on our Governance page along with information about our approach to risk management, data protection, and other policies and procedures.
Sustainability Development Group
The SDG is responsible for all aspects of our sustainability strategy, from recommendations for the strategy and its development, through to delivering, embedding, and communicating it. Our Group Chief Risk Officer chairs the SDG with support from our Group Head of Sustainability. The SDG reports to the Group Executive Committee.
Group Sustainability Committee
The GSC is an exceptional instrument of governance in our sector: only 13% of FTSE 100 non-banking financial service companies have a comparable Board-level committee. It gives strategic advice, leadership, and challenge to the Board about Lowell’s sustainability agenda, and sets our appetite and ambition thresholds at a Board level.
Our approach to risk
Our Risk Framework defines essential risk management components and includes key principles and standards. We underpin this framework with standard operating procedures covering developing Risk Appetite, policy governance, top-down risk assessment, risk control self-assessment, risk incident management, issue management, and risk acceptance.
This rigorous approach helps us protect our company, customers, clients, investors, and colleagues. We do so through informed risk decision-making and by sticking to robust risk management processes. We have instilled a risk-focussed culture throughout the company and at all levels. We follow best practices even where there isn’t a regulatory requirement for us to do so.
A three-lines-of-defence model anchors our risk strategy:
Download more information about our approach to risk.
We see risk as a connected system across our business, our customers, our partners and the wider world – we’re striving to build a resilient business while addressing broader challenges such as social vulnerability and climate change.
Streamlining risk across the UK, DACH, and the Nordics
The Lowell Risk Library helps us identify, understand, and manage risk.
It’s held on the Xactium [software] platform, which allows users to run risk assessments, report incidents, and track progress on improvement actions. We updated the platform in 2023 to align with the Group structure and risk maturity, and to clearly reflect our business models across the regions.
Read more about our data protection and information security.
Third-party management
Our central procurement team oversees the management of third-party contractors and agencies, with individual relationships managed by specialists within the business.
We follow our Group Procurement Policy when we’re assessing potential suppliers and setting up relationships. The policy describes the control framework for all business units to follow, including authorisation levels, third-party selection guidelines, due diligence, onboarding, oversight, ongoing management, and exit management.
The policy helps ensure that goods and services we procure provide value for money and align with our business strategy; our operational, financial, legal, and regulatory requirements; our Sustainability Strategy; and our commitment to the UN Global Compact principles covering human rights, labour, environment, and anti-corruption.
How we’re doing: sustainability snapshot from 2022
Environment
- We’ve cut Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 57% since 2019.
- 10 of our offices are now on renewable electricity tariffs and 61% of our total electricity consumption is from renewable sources (up from 17% in 2019).
- In the UK, we do not send any waste to landfill.
See the 2022 Sustainability Report
See the 2022 Performance Scorecard
See the 2022 SASB Index
How are we managing our impact on the environment?
We’ve been working with the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) since August 2023, when we took the opportunity to strengthen our carbon reduction targets. We’re working towards a range of ambitious targets, including reducing operational emissions (what we generate from our offices, company cars, and business travel) by 65% by 2025 and hitting Net Zero by 2040.
You can keep up to speed with our progress in our annual Sustainability Report.
Our climate goals have changed to match the SBTi standard
Since getting onboard with the Science Based Targets initiative, we’ve revised our Net Zero target to align with their guidelines. That means we’ve changed our original, pre-SBTi goal to hit Net Zero by 2030. We’re still going to make significant reductions in our emissions by that date, but we’re now focusing on formalising a long-term target to reach the SBTi Net Zero standard by 2040.
Instead, we’re working towards the standard over two milestones. When the SBTi has verified our numbers, we’ll publish the detail here.
Our climate goals
We re-set our climate goals in August 2023. We will:
- Reduce operational emissions by 65% (from the 2019 baseline) by 2025 for Scope 1 and 2 emissions and from business travel.
- Hit carbon neutral by 2025 for Scope 1 and 2 emissions and from business travel.
- Use 100% renewable electricity in all offices by 2025.
- Cut emissions in our value chain by a ‘significant’ amount – within the SBTi guidelines – during the next 5-10 years. We will publish this ‘near-term’ target by the end of 2025.
- Agree a 'long-term target' to reach the SBTi Net Zero standard by 2040, which we’ll publish by the end of 2025.
What do we mean by Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions?
These are the standard categories of emissions that companies create in their own operations and through their value chain.
- Scope 1: this covers all the emissions that a company makes directly, like those from company cars and emissions from manufacturing processes.
- Scope 2: indirect emissions like heating and electricity, which the company doesn’t produce itself.
- Scope 3: the emissions that a company is indirectly responsible for, like the goods and services we buy, colleagues commuting to the office, and so on throughout the value chain.
Our five-point plan for emissions reduction
We have a plan to reduce our Scope 1 and 2 emissions:
- Switch to 100% renewable electricity across all our sites.
- Exploit energy efficiency opportunities on high-emission sites with long-term lease commitments.
- Optimise office space for hybrid working.
- Insist all new sites come with green credentials.
- Remove all internal combustion engine vehicles from our fleet by 2030.
We’ll publish a baseline for our Scope 3 emissions later in 2024.
Engaging colleagues on environmental issues
Formed in June 2022, our Environmental Involve Group (EIG) consists of colleague volunteers who want to put their personal passion for environmental topics to good use in helping the planet.
The EIG’s remit is to be a critical friend for our environmental work, helping to shape our corporate agenda and to generate interesting and informative content to help colleagues make more informed choices in their personal life.
Waste
In the UK, we’ve already achieved our goal of sending no waste to landfill.
We’re now looking at how we can introduce sustainable waste management, which will include regular waste audits, the enthusiastic participation of our Environment Involve group of Lowell volunteers and reducing our use of paper.