Climate touches every sector on earth. It impacts everything. We're building and backing businesses that are making the world sustainable.
The entrepreneurs we back are making it their mission to tackle inequality and improve access to products and services that empower people and build stronger communities.
We're building and backing companies with solutions that address public health and wellbeing and are creating social and financial value faster than ever before.
We wake up believing that business, when done properly, is a force for good. And that entrepreneurs are society’s true agents of change.
Investing in the people, ideas and industries that will change the world.
Octopus is most definitely a glass-half-full kind of company. We wake up believing that business, when done properly, is a force for good. And that entrepreneurs are society’s true agents of change. This year has been a big year for Octopus. And although we’ve grown to more than 6,000 employees and six million customers across the Group, we still wake up with the same energy and optimism of a start-up. This year’s Future Generations report is designed to bring to life some of the exciting things we’ve been up to over the last 12 months. If you’re interested in finding out more, you can register here to receive the video documentaries we made as part of pulling this year’s report together. I hope you’re as excited as we are about what the future holds.
READ SIMON'S LETTER
EXPLORE THE CONTENTS
what one word would you use to sum up Octopus?
If you ask anyone who works at Octopus what makes it such an amazing place to work, you’ll get the same answer. The people. So this year we spoke to some of our people and asked them to sum up Octopus in one word... this is what we got...
OUR SHAREHOLDERS
OUR COMMUNITY
THE ENVIRONMENT
OUR CUSTOMERS
OUR PEOPLE
We believe that how a company behaves is just as important as what it does. That’s why in 2021 we decided to become a B Corp (the equivalent to a Fairtrade coffee stamp for companies). And we made a promise to consider our five stakeholders within everything that we do. Click the icons below to see what outperformance means to each of those stakeholders:
HOW WE BEHAVE
WHAT WE DO
FIND OUT MORE
Simon
FUTURE GENERATIONS REPORT 2023
Video
Today we manage £6.1 billion in companies helping to build a more sustainable planet.
BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE PLANET
OCTOPUS ENERGY
OCTOPUS ENERGY GENERATION
OCTOPUS REAL ESTATE: GREENER HOMES ALLIANCE
OCTOPUS VENTURES
Healthcare
People
Planet
Empowering People
Revitalising Healthcare
Octopus Energy Generation
Building a sustainable planet
Just like the saying “make hay while the sun shines”, we need to build a flexible energy system capable of using every single green electron when it's abundant. People are a crucial piece of that puzzle. That’s why we trialled the UK’s largest ever dynamic demand shift: our 'Big Dirty Turn Down': paying around 100,000 households to shift their energy out of certain peak times. Because why pay a fossil fuel generator to switch on, when you could pay those who can use a bit less power to do that instead?
Smart Trials
Octopus also offers the UK’s first smart ‘export’ tariff -OutgoingOctopus. Put simply, it means that if you have solar power, we’ll buy the energy you export, sell it to the grid, and give you the profit. So that instead of you paying us for energy, we pay you for it. No tricks. No catch.
Encouraging home energy generation
Octopus Energy's smart tariffs are the UKs very first offerings designed to reward customers with cheaper rates when they use energy when there is an excess of renewable energy. Last year, Octopus Energy's smart tariff customers did as much as the UK’s largest energy storage systems to help make the most of renewable energy, saving customers a pretty penny in the process.
Smart Tariffs
THE SOLUTION
DID YOU KNOW?
When Octopus Energy say that they’re going to put customers first, they mean it. In the middle of an energy crisis, Greg Jackson and his team at Octopus Energy ditched profit to keep customer energy bills down in a bid to make the transition to renewable energy faster and cheaper for millions of people.
WHAT IF ENERGY COMPANIES TREATED ALL THEIR STAKEHOLDERS AS WELL AS THEIR SHAREHOLDERS?
Octopus Energy
/
Home
VIDEO TO GO HERE
The amount spent by the five biggest oil and gas companies every year lobbying to prevent climate policy.
$1bn
of the world's energy comes from fossil fuels.
80%
of UK electricity is lost before it reaches your home.
54%
Greener Homes Alliance
Over the next 18 months we'll be working with communities across the UK to bring them cheaper power from their local Fan Club turbine. Want to read more or join the list of 1,500 communities keen to get involved?
Launching 30 new Fan Club projects
Octopus Energy Generation has pledged £3bn towards cutting-edge clean, green hydrogen production by 2030. We can then use this hydrogen to decarbonise challenging sectors like heavy industry and transport.
Investing £3bn in green hydrogen for heavy industry
From new wind farms across the UK, France, Finland and Sweden, this deal will almost double our wind capacity over the next 10 years – most of it in Scotland and Wales.
Investing in enough wind for 1/2 million homes
In Sweden, we’re currently building one of the biggest wind turbines the worlds ever seen! At 200m tall - it’s more than twice as tall as Big Ben - and it’ll generate enough green energy every year to power over 40,000 homes.
Building one of the world’s biggest wind turbines
Octopus is one of Europe's largest investors in renewables, generating enough energy to power more than two million homes. In fact, we run one in ten solar farms across the UK so if you drive past a field filled with panels there's a good chance it's one of ours. One of the coolest things the team are working on is the 'Fan Club', bringing people cheaper power from their local Fan Club turbine. Click here if you're interested in getting involved in the development of your local turbine...
WHAT IF WE BUILT WIND TURBINES BIGGER THAN SKYSCRAPERS?
Octopus Energy generation
tons of ice is melting every year due to global warming, equivalent to an area the size of Turkey.
1.2tr
20,000 years
people a year are forced from their homes because of climate change.
20m
The earth has seen 20,000 years of temperature change in 170 years.
Next page
Previous page
Back to Building a sustainable planet
Building a sustainable planet: Octopus Ventures
Vehicle-2-Grid charging lets you charge your vehicle using cheap, green energy overnight, drive around in the day, and then plug-in to your home to power it, or send those green electrons back into the grid to help address consumer demand at a point when renewables are generally scarce.
Vehicle-2-Grid charging
A trial run by Octopus Energy and Powervault in 2020 showed that even without having solar panels on the roof, the average UK customer could save up to £270-580 per year by using a ‘Powervault’ battery alongside a smart tariff which allows you to take advantage of cheaper ‘off-peak’ energy to store energy when demand is low and energy is cheap.
Partnering with Powervault
Less energy. Heat pumps are 4x more efficient than even the best boilers. Less carbon. As well as being more efficient, they run on electricity, which is getting greener and greener every year. Less maintenance. A heat pump can last years longer than a boiler, and you cut down on pricey maintenance. informed customers.
Heat pumps give you the same heat with...
Building operations account for about 28% of global CO emissions. We need to rethink construction to reduce the harm our homes have on the planet. Our real estate team believe in a future where going green is the affordable option. Through their partnership with Homes England, they're reducing interest rates for developers that meet specific high energy efficiency performance. All this is new for a lot of developers so to plug the knowledge gap, they’re partnering with our energy business to make sure that developers are armed with everything they need to build zero-bill homes.
WHAT IF GOING GREEN WAS ALWAYS THE AFFORDABLE OPTION?
OCTOPUS REAL ESTATE
homes in the UK need retrofitting to meet our climate targets.
19m
of UK homes are still heated by oil and gas.
95%
of the UK’s carbon emissions come from heating.
14%
Buildings account for about 28% of global CO emissions. We need to rethink construction to reduce the harm our homes have on the planet. Our real estate team believe in a future where going green is the affordable option. Through their partnership with Homes England, they're reducing interest rates for developers that meet specific high energy efficiency performance. All this is new for a lot of developers so to plug the knowledge gap, they’re partnering with our energy business to make sure that developers are armed with everything they need to build zero- bill homes.
2
Empowering people
Octopus Ventures
Restaurants, brands and retailers tracking and reducing the carbon footprint of food from farm to fork. Carbon labels to communicate impact to customers. Millions of better-informed customers.
Waiting on copy
In 2019 Anya Doherty was researching sustainable food systems at the University of Cambridge when she spotted an opportunity to apply what she was learning directly to the food industry. She founded Foodsteps and over the past three years the team have been building a platform that makes it easy and accessible for any food business to measure, reduce and communicate their environmental impact through food labels.
WHAT IF PEOPLE STOPPED COUNTING CALORIES AND STARTED COUNTING CARBON?
PORTFOLIO COMPANY
Suppliers are paid to keep increasing the biodiversity on their land. Businesses make an immediate impact on their sustainability commitments. Investors in regeneration benefit from financial returns. And nature flourishes from the success of investment and business growth.
Increasing biodiversity
The biodiversity gained, can be quantified and these gains can be turned into tradeable assets for people to invest in called Nature Uplifts.
Quantifying biodiversity
By applying technology, expert knowledge and machine learning, Pivotal can measure biodiversity – affordably, efficiently, accurately, and at scale.
Measuring biodiversity
Cameron Frayling and Zoe Balmforth set up Pivotal to build an economy that puts nature and business in balance by incentivising the regeneration of biodiversity. Businesses, economies and societies around the world rely on diverse plant and animal life to create the products and services they need. But nature is complex and difficult to measure, and traditional methods are expensive, slow and hard to scale. Pivotal is making measuring biodiversity affordable, efficient, accurate, and scalable.
WHAT IF NATURE HAD ITS OWN EXCHANGE?
foodsteps
pivotal
Restaurants, brands and retailers tracking and reducing the carbon footprint of food from farm to fork. Carbon labels to communicate impact to customers. Millions ofbetter-informed customers.
Cameron Frayling and Zoe Balmforth set up Pivotal to put nature and business in balance by incentivising the regeneration of biodiversity. Businesses, economies and societies around the world rely on diverse plant and animal life to create the products and services they need. But nature is complex and difficult to measure, and traditional methods are expensive, slow and hard to scale. Pivotal is making measuring biodiversity affordable, efficient, accurate, and scalable.
WHAT IF BUSINESS WAS GOOD FOR NATURE?
of global greenhouse gas emissions are created by food.
30%
of food produced globally goes to waste. That's 2.5 billion tons each year.
40%
Swapping beef mince for plant-based alternatives saves the equivalent to heating seven UK homes a year.
7 homes
of our medicines rely on resources found in our rainforests.
25%
homes are reliant on mangroves for protection from flooding.
18m
of the world's crops depend on pollinators such as bees, butterflies and birds.
75%
Eating a tomato has the same carbon footprint as driving 1.6km.
1.6km
Swapping beef mince for plant-based alternatives saves the equivalent to heating 7 UK homes a year.
Today we manage £1.8 billion in companies empowering people and communities.
EMPOWERING PEOPLE
OCTOPUS REAL ESTATE: AFFORDABLE HOUSING
fibre
GUARDIAN ANGEL
OCTOPUS MONEYCOACH
QUOTED COMPANIES TEAM
THE AURORA GROUP
Building a Sustainable Planet
Today we manage £1.4 billion in companies empowering people and communities.
Octopus MoneyCoach
The team believe everyone deserves to have access to friendly, trustworthy 1-to-1 guidance. That everyone should have a personal money plan to reach their goals. And that everyone deserves to feel good about money. There are lots of useful blogs, podcasts and videos out there, but nothing provides peace of mind like a conversation with an expert who can understand your needs and validate your decisions. So, when you reach out to Octopus MoneyCoach you’re connected with a financial coach who can help you at a fraction of the cost associated with financial advice.
Get yourself your own MoneyCoach
94% of people in the UK worry about money. So when you're trying to make better money decisions, nothing provides peace of mind like a conversation with an expert who can understand your needs and validate your choices. Octopus MoneyCoach is a company perk that connects employees with their very own financial coach, someone who can help them at a fraction of the cost of financial advice and regardless of how much they earn.
WHAT IF WE ALL HAD A GP FOR OUR FINANCIAL HEALTH?
Guardian Angel
Octopus moneycoach
of UK adults don’t feel confident managing their money.
39%
of UK teens don't know the difference between a credit card and a debit card.
32%
UK citizens are in serious debt, and only around a third receive help.
9m
UK adults have less than £100 in savings.
11m
of adults (20.3 million) don’t feel confident managing their money.
million UK adults UK have less than £100 in savings.
Back to Empowering People
Affordable Housing
Their Support Hubs are private online groups for bereaved families and friends. You can use them to co-ordinate funeral information, donations, memories and photos. You may wish to start a Support Hub or join an existing one.
Bereavement Support
Making a lasting Will and Testament is simpler than you might imagine. Let the Guadian Angel team guide you through the process and help you to gain some peace of mind. Visit https://guardianangel.network/online-will
Legal services
When Sam Grice lost his mother tragically in a car accident, he learned first-hand how difficult it is to manage everything that comes with losing a loved one. He started Guardian Angel to help people to plan for, and deal with, death. The Guardian Angel team are making a positive and long-lasting contribution to society by helping to break down the taboo attached to death.
WHAT IF YOU COULD MAKE YOUR DEATH EASIER FOR THE PEOPLE YOU LEAVE BEHIND?
guardian angel
of people had trouble finding money to pay for a funeral.
19%
of people whose loved ones died without a plan experienced anxiety.
53%
Only three in ten adults have an up-to-date will.
3/10
of people have trouble finding money to pay for a funeral.
Octopus Real Estate: Affordable Housing
The Aurora Group
We aim to work in partnership with Housing Associations and Local Authorities to: - Accelerate the delivery of genuinely affordable, quality homes, providing a structure and sustainable funding route that the social housing sector can trust. - Reduce fuel poverty using Octopus’s unique energy expertise. - Deliver affordable housing for older people. - Support levelling-up across England with a novel co-investment structure.
Collective action to solve collective problems
In the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, demand for high quality, genuinely affordable rental homes has never been greater. Our real estate team are working with housing associations to help alleviate pressure by providing a sustainable funding route for the Affordable Housing sector. Helping those that need it most see a future where they could live in an energy-efficient and affordable home.
WHAT IF EVERYONE COULD ACCESS AFFORDABLE AND ENERGY-EFFICIENT HOMES?
octopus real estate: affordable housing
in funding is needed every year to respond to the undersupply of affordable rental homes.
£12.8bn
UK households live in Affordable Housing.
4m
An additional 1.8 million Affordable Homes are needed.
1.8m
We see each person as an individual, who will move on to lead a fulfilling, independent life of their choosing. Whether that is further education, employment, training or supported living. - 96% of our leavers go on to further education, training, and employment. - 100% of our Colleges are rated Good or Better (compared to 79% nationally rated good or better). - 100% of our Adult Services are rated Outstanding. - 100% of our children’s homes are rated Good or Better (compared to 81% nationally rated good or better).
Learning life lessons
One in seven children and young adults have some form of a condition linked to neurodiversity. Their brains function, process, and learn information in a different way from the rest of the population. To enable these children and young adults to learn, achieve and thrive, we need to build a society where they can be themselves. In 2015, Octopus backed the Aurora Group, a specialist provider for children and young adults across the UK. From the very first day a student walks through their doors, they’re building foundations that will last a lifetime.
WHAT IF THE EDUCATION SYSTEM SERVED THE CHILDREN IT WAS SUPPOSED TO SERVE?
Quoted Companies
of autistic adults are in full-time employment, even though 77% of unemployed autistic adults want to work.
of autistic children are not in the kind of school their parents believe would best support them.
of autistic children say that being picked on is the worst thing about school.
34%
63%
16%
The AURORA Group
Quoted Companies team
Fibre
Every year, the Quoted team conducts more than 800 face-to-face meetings to weed out the best investment opportunities.
Finding the best teams
We blend companies from across the entire UK equity market with a focus on faster growth generating businesses, capable of paying, where relevant, a progressive, growing dividend.
Identifying growth opportunities
Our quoted funds specialise in investing in smaller companies, which over the long term have outperformed larger companies.
Smaller companies have huge growth potential
The world is changing more quickly than ever. Large companies typically struggle with change, they stop taking risks and spend too much time focused on the present rather than the future. The companies which thrive in this new world are smaller companies. Not burdened with the same legacy thinking, they’re typically quicker to respond and adapt to the world around them. Our quoted funds specialise in investing in smaller companies, which over the long term have outperformed larger companies. To weed out those opportunities, our Quoted Companies team conducts more than 800 face-to-face meetings every year.
WHAT IF BIG THINGS ALWAYS COME IN SMALL PACKAGES?
Quoted Companies Team
High-growth small businesses account for 33% of all new jobs created in the UK each year.
The average lifespan of companies in the S&P 500 has dwindled from 61 years in the 1950s to just 18 years.
Of the 100 largest quoted companies in 1984, only 28 are still in the index today.
28
18
33%
new icon
Vorboss is building a dedicated enterprise fibre network in London to deliver high-bandwidth connectivity to business customers.
Vorboss
An internet service provider in towns and cities across the UK, and a full-fibre broadband provider building its own network to bring gigabit capable connectivity to homes and businesses in the South of England.
Giganet
A full-fibre broadband provider, bringing exceptional connectivity services to homes and businesses in the Home Counties.
Swish Fibre
A full-fibre broadband provider, bringing gigabit capable connectivity to underserved communities and regions in the Southwest of England.
Jurrasic Fibre
Over the last 20 years, the internet has become part of daily life. And yet today 1.5 million UK homes are still without access to the worldwide web. The amount of data we use is growing rapidly, and watching television online is just the tip of the iceberg. We’re not far off a world where everything is connected to the internet. Improving efficiency through interconnected systems that help make life easier, while reducing our impact on the planet. The companies we are backing are upgrading the digitial infrastructure for over a million homes in the UK, giving them full fibre instead of copper connections, which means better quality broadband fit for the 21st century.
WHAT IF EVERYTHING WAS CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET?
Empowering People: Octopus Ventures
FIBRE
By 2030, it is estimated there will be over 125 billion internet-connected devices – with every household projected to own, on average, 15 connected devices.
Right now, 4.9 billion people are using the Internet.
of the searches Google gets each day have never been Googled before.
20%
4.9bn
125bn
Improve the accuracy of hiring decisions by 80%. Candidate completion rates of over 90%. Reduce time and cost by at least 30%.
Fairness by design
Fairness by design is at the heart of what Sova do. They believe there’s a perfect role for every person, and creating opportunity means assessing for potential, not track record. Sova’s commitment to intelligent, ethically applied AI helps you to consistently make fair decisions that support more diverse hiring, and progression.
WHAT IF YOU COULD UNRAVEL UNCONCIOUS BIAS?
Alan Bourne founded Sova to break the status quo and disrupt how people make hiring decisions. Their scientific, digitally delivered solution is a fully customisable platform which helps companies make accurate and fair data-driven decisions and create immersive digital candidate experiences. Their solution can improve the accuracy of hiring decisions by 80% and reduce time and cost by at least 30%.
Safeguarding software to effectively manage a safer recruitment process.
Recruitment
Managing allegations and concerns about staff confidentially and effectively.
Whistleblowing
Making it easy to record, manage, and report concerns. Protecting children, young people and adults wherever they are.
Protection
The Safeguarding Company offers safeguarding solutions to make children and adults safe and secure. Their solutions aim to create happier, healthier, and more productive lives.
Creating happier, healthier lives
WHAT IF YOU COULD STOP STRANGERS TALKING TO YOUR KIDS?
For society to function, children and adults need to be safe wherever they live, learn and work. The Safeguarding Company was co-founded by a former Chief Constable who identified that by digitally recording safeguarding incidents, institutions looking after some of society’s most vulnerable groups, would quickly be able to identify patterns of abuse, harm and neglect; and then rapidly put in place interventions to reduce the pain of abuse for 1,000s of vulnerable children and adults across the world.
SOVA
The Safeguarding Company
sova
1 in 5 women experience gender discrimination in recruitment.
“White-sounding” names get 50% more call-backs than “black-sounding” names.
85-97% of hiring managers rely on intuition.
Recruitment can be messy and complicated, but most of all it is the foundation of inequality. Alan Bourne founded Sova to break the status quo and disrupt how people make hiring decisions. Their scientific, digitally delivered solution is a fully customisable platform which helps companies make accurate and fair data-driven decisions and create immersive digital candidate experiences.
WHAT IF YOU COULD IDENTIFY THE MOST VULNERABLE CHILD BEFORE IT WAS TOO LATE?
women experience gender discrimination in recruitment.
of hiring managers rely on intuition.
85-97%
50%
1 in 5
1 in 5 children have been exposed to domestic abuse.
1 in 20 children in the UK have been sexually abused.
1 in 14 children have experienced physical abuse.
children have been exposed to domestic abuse.
children in the UK have been sexually abused.
children have experienced physical abuse.
1 in 14
1 in 20
REVITALISING HEALTHCARE
Today we manage £2 billion in companies revitalising healthcare systems.
OCTOPUS REAL ESTATE: ELDERLY CARE
Getting old is inevitable, but quality facilities that can enrich people's lives are in short supply, and for many people retiring is lonely and isolating. We’re building care homes and retirement villages that our elderly want to live in. Places where they can make friends and socialise in a way that they couldn’t from the confines of their own homes. Our Retirement Living solutions are currently funding the delivery of 2,280 units, supporting the older generation in purpose built Real Estate that provides for their later lifestyle needs. And our Care Home fund manages 96 high-quality, fit-for-the-future care homes providing care for up to 6,855 residents.
WHAT IF WE MADE OLDER PEOPLE THE FOUNDATION OF OUR SOCIETY?
Revitalising Healthcare: Octopus Ventures
Octopus Real Estate: ElderLY Care
Octopus Real Estate: Elderly Care
Revitalising healthcare
Being unhappy or experiencing loneliness accelerates the aging process more than smoking.
of people aged over 60 are lonely.
of people aged 65 and over have a limiting long-term illness or disability.
24%
Getting old is inevitable, but quality facilities that can enrich people's lives are in short supply, and for many people retiring is lonely and isolating. We’re building care homes and retirement villages that our elderly want to live in. Places where they can make friends and socialise in a way that they couldn’t from the confines of their own homes. Our Retirement Living solutions are currently funding the delivery of 2,280 units, supporting the older generation in purpose built Real Estate that provides for their later lifestyle needs. And our Care Home fund manages 96 high- quality, fit-for-the-future care homes providing care for up to 6,855 residents.
Back to Revitalising Healthcare
Achieve your goals — big and small — with the new strategies and tips you learn from Inflow’s professional coaching team. By working alongside one of our expert coaches, you'll have all the accountability and support you need to get things done and stay on track.
Your own personal ADHD coach
You’re not alone. Find your place in our virtual, in-app community, and draw strength from people going through similar challenges. Members can also join any of our live events with qualified ADHD experts to get their burning ADHD questions answered. We're here to help you make life simpler by seeing what works for you—and what doesn’t.
Connect with people who get it
At the heart of Inflow is our science-based program, proven to help ADHDers manage symptoms. We help you learn how ADHD specifically impacts your unique lifestyle, and better understand how your ADHD brain works.
Learn something new every day
When people with ADHD become hyper focused, they can focus so intently on a task that they may not even notice the world around them.
Teens with ADHD have a 62% higher chance of a crash in their first month of driving.
A study in 2018 found that adults with ADHD feel empowered and flourish doing creative tasks, which may give them a unique advantage in the workplace. ADHD, according to this research, creates "outside-the-box thinking" that can provide fresh perspectives on problems.
Inflow is the #1 science-based app to help people manage their ADHD, created by a team of clinicians and coaches living with ADHD. The team believe that people deserve accessible, affordable, and effective care. Inflow eases the pain associated with accessing support. Through a dynamic, science-based programme, members gain a better understanding of themselves, access coaching and practical tools, and learn strategies to manage their ADHD — all as part of a safe, stigma-free, and accepting community.
WHAT IF GETTING HELP WITH ADHD DIDN’T MEAN WAITING TWO YEARS FOR A DIAGNOSIS?
The team is a collection of doctors, researchers and engineers — united by their passion for improving hormonal healthcare. - 75% of patients were happier to start a new birth control after using Tuune. - 84% of users would be disappointed if they could no longer use Tuune. - 61% of users agree that Tuune is an improvement to a typical consult.
Tune in to your body
Tuune work with the medical community to enact real change in women's’ healthcare, starting with contraceptive health, removing the trial-and-error approach to choosing birth control. They identify hormone-related symptoms/conditions and recommend the best birth control options, with personalised solutions to each patient.
7 in 10 women who take hormonal contraception said they suffered mood swings, while almost half had experienced depression, and around three in ten said they had grappled with anxiety.
Almost one quarter of women blame hormonal contraception for relationship ending.
Shardi Nahavandi couldn’t drink water, she couldn’t see, her hair was falling out. When doctors couldn't find anything, they dismissed her symptoms as stress. Set on uncovering the answers herself, she pursued master’s degrees in Health Technology and Endocrinology. Countless research papers later, she found it — a hormone imbalance. Ignited by her passion to help women understand their hormones better, Shardi started Tuune. Their mission is to create a medical system that puts hormones centre stage. In the process they’re transforming the future of healthcare.
WHAT IF YOU DIDN’T NEED DOCTORS TO DIAGNOSE YOUR PROBLEMS?
The app teaches its users a number of coping mechanisms that help them with tinnitus, essentially by screening it out. If you change the way your brain reacts to the sound, you stop noticing there is a sound at all.
Training yourself to adapt
Tinnitus is known to be one of the most common health problems facing the UK today, about 10% of the population have it all the time.
Tinnitus afflicts about 749 million people worldwide.
More than 7 million adults in the UK have tinnitus, a persistent ringing or buzzing sound in your ears. Edmund Farrar, who himself suffers from the condition, came up with the idea for Oto alongside co-founder George Ledig while they were working together as military doctors in the Royal Air Force. Oto provides psychological support digitally via its mobile app, providing a 10x cheaper and more convenient way to help people manage their condition.
WHAT IF YOU COULD STOP THE RINGING IN YOUR EARS?
luna is a space for you to learn, read and ask about all things teen health and wellbeing. It’s an app that helps you understand topics that aren’t always taught or talked about enough. Built by medical professionals and other teens across the UK, with luna you'll always have somewhere to turn for reliable content, hacks and advice - no questions left unanswered.
An app you can trust
Jasmine Schembri and Jo Goodall started luna to address health taboos that affect young people across the world. No matter where you're from, health and wellbeing aren't covered enough at school, and teens aren’t comfortable talking about it at home or with friends. luna is educating, empowering and supporting teens through adolescence. Helping them to recognise fact from fiction, know enough about their body to raise concerns with the right people, or have access to content so they can learn and make informed decisions.
WHAT IF TEENS COULD LEARN ABOUT THEIR HEALTH WITHOUT TURNING TO TIKTOK?
Elderly Care
oto
LUNA
tuune
inflow
More than seven million adults in the UK have tinnitus, a persistent ringing or buzzing sound in their ears. Edmund Farrar, who, suffers from the condition, came up with the idea for Oto alongside co-founder George Leidig while they were working together as military doctors in the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy, respectively. Oto is a digital platform for people suffering from tinnitus which uses a powerful combination of 1-2-1 sessions with specialist tele-audiologists and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) via a smartphone app to provide people suffering from tinnitus with a solution.
Teenage girls are 3x more likely to report mental health issues than their male counterparts.
40% of Gen Z prefer using TikTok and Instagram for search over Google.
8% of teens use online sources to fill health education gap.
3/10 is what teens rate their health and wellbeing education in school, when their parents were asked, they thought it was 8/10.
Jas Schembri and Jo Goodall started luna to address the taboo on heath that affects young people across the world. No matter where we you're from, health and wellbeing is not being covered enough at school, and teens aren’t comfortable talking about it at home or with friends. They believe that more can be done to educate, empower and support teens going through adolescence. Whether that’s recognising fact from fiction, knowing enough about your body to raise concerns to the right people, or having the right content available to learn and make informed decisions. And that’s why, together with teens and experts, they’re building luna.
VIDEO COMING....
is what teens rate their health and wellbeing education in school.
of teens use online sources to fill health education gap.
88%
of Gen Z prefer using TikTok and Instagram for search over Google.
749m
of people with tinnitus have some level of hearing loss.
90%
of the UK population experience it constantly.
10%
of women blame hormonal contraception for relationships ending.
of women who take hormonal contraception experienced depression.
of women in the UK could be taking a pill incompatible to their body and health.
1/3
Children from primarily English-speaking households are 4x more likely to be diagnosed.
4x
Men are 3x more likely to be diagnosed than women.
3x
increase of ADHD diagnosis in the past 8 years.
42%
How We Behave: Our People
As part of our Building a sustainable planet week in June, more than 200 people made climate commitments ranging from going vegan, through to buying an EV and installing solar panels.
In February, as part of our Empowering People week, 150 of our employees gave a total of 550 hours of time to worthy causes.
In November, as part of our Revitalising Healthcare week, our employees addressed taboo health issues by sharing their own stories with the rest of the company.
EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
Anchor is the collective name for all the wellbeing ‘stuff’ (!) at Octopus. This broadly includes coaching, therapy, nutrition, mindfulness, physical health, financial wellbeing, help with children, and much more.
Anchor Services
In our experience, owners behave differently. They’re more accountable, to customers and to one another. That’s why we’ve always encouraged share ownership within the business and why 75% of the business is owned by our founders and our employees, past and present.
Employee ownership
We believe that some of the world's biggest problems will be solved by entrepreneurs. That's why we started the Springboard programme – allowing employees to pitch their business idea to the board members and take advantage of a four-month paid sabbatical to get it off the ground. If it doesn't work out, you get your job back.
Springboard programme
EMPLOYEE INITIATIVES
Our people
We believe that great business is simply about how you make people feel. This starts with your people. Your people create your culture and define the relationships you build with your customers.
Our Customers
Throughout the year we run internal campaigns that bring to life our three themes: building a sustainable planet, empowering people and revitalising healthcare.
As part of our Revitalising Healthcare week, employees addressed taboo health topics by sharing their own stories with the rest of the company and encouraging others to feel comfortable talking about these topics.
Octopus is helping millions of people to create the lives they really want, by giving them access to the financial support they need. Whether it’s writing a will or understanding how a mortgage works, our money companies, Octopus MoneyCoach, Octopus Wealth and Guardian Angel, provide customers with the knowhow to make informed financial decisions.
Bringing money to life
customers taking control of their financial lives
4,500
Our energy business was built around our customers. That’s why, despite being on track to hit profitability for the first time this year, we decided to do everything in our power to reduce energy costs for customers. This kind of behaviour is the reason we've been the only ‘Which’ approved energy provided five years on the trot.
Making it easier and cheaper for people to access green energy
Octopus Energy customers
3.4 million
customers supported by kraken
10.7 million
As well as making investments in companies that help to make the world a better place, we’re making sure that we fulfil our responsibility to the stakeholders they serve. We apply the principles that govern how we run our business to how we manage investments, and provide tools and guidance to help the entrepreneurs we back to build more responsible businesses.
Changing why people invest
Today, of the £12 billion we manage, more than 75% is invested across our three core themes:
£6.1 billion
£1.8 billion
£2 billion
Our customers
As a company managing more than £12 billion, we understand our privileged position in helping to build a better tomorrow. And we absolutely want the world to be a better place because of where we invest our clients’, and our own, money.
The Environment
Our People
While we have identified some clear areas where we can reduce our carbon emissions, we still need to improve the emissions data so that we can make informed decisions across marketing and tech services.
Improve data
We’re exploring all opportunities to lease one of the most sustainable offices in London.
New office
This year we’re implementing an internal carbon budget across teams, to make employees accountable for their role in reducing our overall emissions to be Net Zero by 2030.
Carbon budget
Environmental initiatives
Our 2022 carbon footprint* has reduced by 19% since 2021. We are on track to hit our 30% reduction by 2025, and our Net Zero target of 2030.
CARBON FOOTPRINT
The environment
We are the first generation to experience the impact of climate change, and the last who can do something about it. The best companies are leading by example. They’re measuring their carbon footprint and taking the tough decisions that are needed to get to Net Zero as fast as possible.
Our Community
* Octopus Group includes Octopus Wealth, Octopus Investments, Octopus Ventures, Octopus Real Estate, Octopus MoneyCoach and Seccl. A more detailed breakdown of our carbon footprint and net zero plan will be released separately.
This year we provided all our unlisted portfolio companies with access to a tool which measures their carbon footprint (no matter their size).
Reduce portfolio emissions
8% of total emissions
Total footprint*
2022 total carbon emissions: 2,176 tonnes of CO
Office and building
10% of total emissions
Employee commuting
4% of total emissions
78%
8%
4%
Purchased goods and services
Business travel
Strategic volunteering projects for charity partners including public affairs consultancy, employee coaching, business development workshops, learning and development including management and mental health.
Skill-based volunteering
£394,000 donated to charities (last year's figure).
Giving our money
- 12,000 hours volunteered. That's 5,000 over our target! - 95% of staff volunteered two days.
Giving our time
OCTOPUS GIVING STATS
Our community
Through Octopus Giving, our charitable foundation, we're giving our most valuable resource, time, to support our community. Last year we set a 7,000 hour target, which forced us to think beyond our own employees and consider how the wider Octopus family could get involved. As well as overwhelming support from our people, this year we also had participation from our shareholders and from some of our portfolio companies. Everyone got involved in strategic, skills-based volunteering with our charity partners Thames21 and GoodGym, and we're thrilled to announce that we smashed our target, clocking up more than 12,000 hours!
Shareholders
THE B CORP ASSESSMENT
We believe that the most valuable companies of the future will not only solve society’s biggest problems, but also behave in a way that’s reassuringly human. In 2021, our shareholders agreed that Octopus should aspire to achieve B Corp certification. That decision changed the way we operated as a business, and today, all five of our stakeholders (our people, environment, customers, community and shareholders) are considered within every business decision we make. We even changed our Articles of Association to reflect this. Not only has this changed the way we manage our business, but it’s also changed the way that we measure our success.
What we do
In our first assessment we scored 94.6, which we thought was a pretty good start (the average company scores 50 and you have to score 80 to be certified as a B Corp). In the last couple of years, we’ve increased our score to around 117, with a target to score in the top 10% of all 8,800 B Corps before we recertify in 2024. We’ve just started the recertification process and we think we're going to make it! If you or your business is interested in beginning the B Corp journey, we’d love to help. Just drop us an email at impactandsustainability@octopusgroup.com.
B Corp SCORE
our aspirational recertification score (2024)
117
our overall b impact score (2021)
94.6
qualifies for b corp certification
80
Median score for ordinary businesses
50.9