Better Health for All
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The company's core financial advice services significantly benefit mental health, with 84% of clients reporting improved emotional and mental health.
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The company also provides comprehensive internal mental health and wellbeing support for its employees, including an Employee Assistance Programme, online resources, private health insurance, and discounted gym memberships.
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The SJP Charitable Foundation's grant-making supports 981 charities, including those focused on mental health, cancer, hospices, and disadvantaged young people with disabilities, supporting 12.8 million people since 1992.
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, with 79% reporting substantive or transformational impact.
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For most other health-related KPIs, the company's business model as a wealth management firm means these categories are not applicable, as it does not directly offer health products or services, conduct health research, or manage health data.
Fair Money & Economic Opportunity
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St. James's Place set aside £426 million in February 2024 to cover customer complaints over charges and services customers claimed not to have received
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, contributing to an annual loss of £9.9 million in 2023.
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The company has been under regulatory scrutiny for high fees, with its Group Personal Pension Schemes and Individual Pension Plans having overall costs and charges above average compared to similar employer pension arrangements in 2024.
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Clients were often unaware of fees deducted from their investments, indicating a lack of transparency.
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Only 4% of clients have less than £50,000 in investable assets
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, with the core target market being mass affluent and high-net-worth.
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The company reinvests 2% of its profit before tax into community initiatives.
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Financial education programs reached 16,618 young people in 2024
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, with 77% reporting increased confidence in managing money.
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The company is undertaking a simplification project for its charging models and processes.
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Positive steps include cutting a range of prices in October 2023
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, removing early withdrawal fees
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, and introducing an annual product charge cap for long-term bond and pension investments.
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Fair Pay & Worker Respect
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The company's median gender pay gap was 29.1% as of April 2024, meaning women earned 71p for every £1 men earned.
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This represents an an improvement of 4.3% from the previous year and a 17.3% improvement since 2017.
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The median ethnicity pay gap was 8.0% as of April 2024, indicating minority ethnic employees earned 92p for every £1 non-minority ethnic employees earned, which was a widening of the gap by 3.4% from the previous year.
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The CEO to median employee pay ratio was 13:1 as of December 2023.
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As of November 2024, 83% of employees reported being paid at or above the Real Living Wage.
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The company is Living Wage and Living Hours accredited.
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St. James's Place also offers 100% full pay for 26 weeks for all parents with requisite service for maternity/paternity/adoption leave.
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Fair Trade & Ethical Sourcing
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St. James's Place, a wealth management business, has reported zero modern slavery or human trafficking risks identified within its suppliers or outsourcers in both 2023 and 2024
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, and no reported incidents of forced child labour.
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The company has active prevention programs, including a Group-wide risk assessment for modern slavery and human trafficking undertaken in 2024
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, and an e-learning module launched in December 2023.
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For material outsourcers and suppliers, general due diligence is completed annually.
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However, the company explicitly states it does not currently carry out Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking audits as standard on its supply chain.
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As a financial services firm, the company does not procure or trade physical commodities, making fair-trade certification and high-risk material sourcing not applicable to its operations. No specific quantitative data was provided for the percentage of suppliers with traceable provenance, median days to close corrective action plans, percentage of contracts with enforceable ethical-sourcing clauses, or percentage of procurement budget directed to diverse suppliers.
Honest & Fair Business
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The company restated its 2023 financial figures for several items, including insurance service expenses and investment components, to better reflect their nature.
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For customer complaints, the company aims to conclude them within 8 weeks, with updates provided if not resolved within 4 weeks.
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St. James's Place operates a comprehensive "Speak Up Policy" covering all legal entities, allowing anyone, including third parties, to raise concerns via an independent, 24/7 anonymous hotline available in multiple regions.
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Annual training is provided to all relevant staff, and the Non-Executive Chair of the Audit Committee serves as the Whistleblowers’ Champion.
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The company also enforces a zero-tolerance anti-bribery and corruption policy with Board oversight, compulsory training for employees and partners, and the policy is publicly accessible.
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Kind to Animals
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As a wealth management business, St. James's Place plc does not engage in activities such as product manufacturing, animal testing, or animal agriculture. Consequently, all KPIs related to cruelty-free certification, alternative testing, humane operations, ethical input substitution, supplier audits for animal welfare, cage-free sourcing, animal testing policies and volume, innovation investment in animal-free technologies, animal agriculture ethics, animal-free R&D collaboration, and public policy engagement are not applicable to its core business model. While the St. James's Place Charitable Foundation includes animal welfare in its objectives
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, no specific details of activities, measurable impact, or active policy engagement by the company itself were provided.
No War, No Weapons
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St. James's Place has an exclusions policy for controversial weapons, which includes anti-personnel mines, cluster munitions, chemical, biological, depleted uranium, and nuclear weapons
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. The company states it does not invest in companies that produce or produce essential components of these controversial weapons
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. However, this policy, effective October 2025, does not apply to third-party strategies, index replication strategies, or investments managed by Rowan Dartington
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. St. James's Place became a Participant of the United Nations Global Compact in 2020
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, reaffirms its support for its Ten Principles
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, acts in accordance with them
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, and excludes companies with unaddressed breaches of these principles
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.
Planet-Friendly Business
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Total Group GHG emissions, including Partnership, SJP Charitable Foundation, and Scope 3 Category 15 (Investments) emissions, were 13.4 million tCO2e in 2024.
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The company committed to SBTi in 2021
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and is working on developing, validating, and disclosing interim science-based targets within the next two years, as it is currently updating and recalibrating its interim and long-term net-zero targets to align with the SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard guidance. In 2020-2021, 98% of operational energy was sourced from low-carbon or renewable energy, and the company purchases 100% renewable electricity for most of its UK managed estate.
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It maintains a zero-waste-to-landfill policy across all UK properties where it oversees waste collection.
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The company uses Carbon Neutral Britain as its main offsetting provider, which certifies projects through Gold Standard, Verified Carbon Standard (VCS), or Certified Emission Reductions (CER) accreditations, and purchased 12,504 tCO2e in carbon credits in 2024, significantly more than its Scope 1 and 2 operational emissions.
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However, the near-term operations target of being climate positive by 2025 has been removed, and there is no evidence of EBIT reinvestment in climate-positive initiatives. The company collects climate change and carbon information annually from suppliers covering 72.1% of its total procurement spend
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and has created supplier-specific emissions factors for nearly 20% of its supply chain spend.
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Biodiversity efforts are minimal, limited to working with the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust for sustainable pruning.
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The overarching group net-zero target is 2050, with Partnership and supply chain targets of net zero by 2035 currently under review.
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The company reports fully consistent with TCFD recommendations
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and conducts annual climate scenario analysis using three NGFS scenarios, outlining fund positioning and providing financial quantification like Climate Value at Risk.
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It transparently discloses the value and percentage of carbon-related, coal, and oil/gas assets in its portfolio.
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Respect for Cultures & Communities
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The company supported 981 charities in 2024
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, with 7 out of 10 grants being Local Office Allowance grants
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, indicating extensive formal partnerships with local community groups. No cultural appropriation incidents have been reported.
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The company has a "Speak up policy" and "Whistleblowing Framework" with an independent third-party hotline for concerns.
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Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) processes are not applicable to its wealth management operations.
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Charitable giving focuses on social and health issues, not cultural heritage. Mandatory Equality Act training covers harassment and discrimination, but not specific cultural sensitivity.
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Safe & Smart Tech
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St. James's Place demonstrates strong regulatory compliance, adhering to the UK Data Protection Act 2018, MiFID II, Consumer Duty reporting, and various whistleblowing laws across multiple jurisdictions (UK, Ireland, Dubai).
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The company also partnered with AI-led regtech firm Napier in September 2022 to enhance its AML and financial crime compliance through continuous screening against global watchlists.
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The company provides comprehensive user data control, including rights to access, rectification, restriction of processing, withdrawal of consent, erasure, objection to direct marketing and processing, data portability, and review of automated decisions.
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St. James's Place implements very good data minimization practices, retaining unsuccessful candidate personal information for a maximum of 6 months from the end of the recruitment process, and other remaining data for 12 months before anonymization.
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St. James's Place has a formal AI ethics policy ensuring human oversight and involvement in AI decision-making processes and continuously works to ensure AI processing does not prevent the fulfillment of individual subject access rights.
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St. James's Place has attained Cyber Essentials Plus certification
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and mandated it for its network of over 2,800 partner organizations.
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Over 1,600 businesses in this network achieved the accreditation within six months
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, contributing to an 80% reduction in cybersecurity incidents within the partnership by December 2023.
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Zero Waste & Sustainable Products
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The company has implemented several waste reduction initiatives. These include recycling office furniture, which prevented 12,457 kg of CO2 equivalent emissions from reaching landfills.
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It also removed plastic from head office canteens, replacing it with compostable or recyclable alternatives.
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A 'Print Less' campaign resulted in a 30% reduction in printing, and digital transitions led to 48,000 clients going paperless.
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