Sarvodaya Development Finance

Sarvodaya Development Finance ensures Employee Wellbeing

About Sarvodaya Development Finance

Sarvodaya Development Finance (SDF) was established by Sri Lanka’s oldest continuing social movement, the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement. The purpose was to support underserved rural economies and grass roots entrepreneurism in Sri Lanka, representing communities deemed ‘non-bankable’ by formal financial institutions. SDF fulfils its mission to foster sustainable development by providing not only a range of financial services, but also by conducting educational programmes on marketing and business management along with organising specialised marketing and promotional events, targeting small and medium enterprises (SMEs) from all parts of the country.

SDF partners with over 3,500 Sarvodaya Shramadana Societies (SSS) in villages across Sri Lanka to channel development funds into grass roots projects

The Challenge

SDF, a leading financial institution, has recognized the growing importance of sustainable investing, and has decided to focus on ESG reporting to meet the demands of investors who seek visibility into the impact created by their investment funds. This is a significant challenge that requires creating awareness among employees and management about the importance of ESG reporting, establishing a data recording process, and selecting the right tools and templates.

To achieve this, SDF decided to leverage the Experienz platform, which was configured to collect data in multiple formats, including spreadsheets and other external systems. This enabled SDF to streamline its ESG reporting process and achieve organization-wide adoption, as desired. 

Furthermore, SDF also expressed its desire to become a leader in sustainable financing in the region and set an ambitious deadline for achieving this goal. To achieve this, SDF wanted to integrate with the CBSL guidelines on sustainable financing and report its activities against Sustainable Development Goals and other ESG guidelines.

This ambitious initiative by SDF is a significant step towards sustainable investing and reflects a growing trend in the financial industry towards responsible investing. By leveraging the right tools and technologies, SDF has demonstrated its commitment to meeting the growing demand for ESG reporting and is well on its way to becoming a leader in sustainable financing.

The Solution

experienz, a digital ESG platform, was deployed by SDF to record, report, and take corrective action towards their ESG targets and goals. Experienz’s capability to seamlessly integrate with data points and establish robust data collection and aggregation has made it easy for SDF to record all ESG-related data. The platform’s configurable dashboards provide the flexibility to generate reports with rich insights, which has made it easier for SDF to adopt ESG reporting requirements.

The CEO and senior management of SDF have found the Experienz platform easy to use and adopt with their ESG reporting requirements. With the ability to seamlessly upload spreadsheets and other data formats, SDF was able to record its ESG commitments across 7 SDG goals, including employee experience and engagement, diversity and inclusion, renewable energy usage, the carbon footprint for Scope 1 and Scope 2, and sustainable impact on their microfinance operations.

The rich data analytics and reporting capabilities of the Experienz platform helped SDF embed sustainable financing into their organizational culture and report digitally. As a result of their efforts, SDF was recognized as the gold award winner for Sri Lanka’s Sustainable Finance after just 12 months of using the platform.

Overall, the implementation of Experienz has been a significant success for SDF, demonstrating their commitment to sustainable financing and responsible investing. The platform has enabled SDF to streamline their ESG reporting process and achieve their organization-wide adoption goals, while also providing rich data analytics and insights to support their sustainable financing efforts.

The Results

SDF was able to gather over 300 employee responses through the system within 16 days, close to 70% of employees taking the survey, even though people were working remotely. SDF ensured the employee voice, health and wellbeing were at the forefront of the organisation’s strategy using the experienz tool. SDF is now using the statistics generated by the experienz platform to more effectively direct effort and resources and improve the overall employee experience they offer.  With the information gathered they can also quickly identify employees who need support, reaching out to them accordingly. 

”"The need to facilitate distancing between co-workers, with around 3,500 Sarvodaya Shramadana Societies (SSS) across Sri Lanka, was a really challenging task and to prioritise our employee’s wellbeing was even harder. experienz helped us to automate the process of ensuring the safety and wellbeing of our employees and engaging our widely diverse and dispersed workforce together, through one platform"

Piyal SalwathuraAssistant General Manager Human Resources - Sarvodaya Development Finance

Business Benefits

Providing a Digital ESG platform for collecting and reporting all ESG activity data
Providing rich analytics on the impact on sustainable finaneing and responsible investing
Creating a corporate culture where all aspects of the the ESG is understood and appreciated
Become the leader in sustainable financing within the country to attract investments

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