Responsible organisation

We strive to be a responsible organisation, through the working environment we create for our team, the way we engage with our stakeholders, and our business practices.

How we operate as a business is as important to us as the science we pursue and the therapies we are developing for patients. We recognise our business practices have an impact on our entire value chain, from our employees to our partners to the environment.

We are a participant of the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), a voluntary leadership platform for the development, implementation and disclosure of responsible business practices. The UNGC is the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative. We report our progress to the UNGC on an annual basis.

We are building a vibrant culture that is aligned with our values of being bold, rigorous, inclusive and compassionate. We take a proactive approach to assessing our workplace environment. In our most recent culture survey, we had an excellent net promoter score of 39.¹

We have been certified a Most Loved Workplace, ranking number 31 in the UK. The list recognises companies that put respect, caring, and appreciation for their employees at the centre of their business model.

There are five areas we focus on in our efforts to be a socially minded organisation:

Team wellbeing: As a mental health care company, we aspire to be a leader in building a workplace that reduces the stigma of mental illness and fosters wellbeing. To us, team wellbeing starts with our culture, ways of working, the benefits we provide, and the support each of our team members receives in defining and pursuing their career aspirations. We also offer a holistic, optional programme to support the physical and mental wellbeing of our team members.
Diversity, equity and inclusion: We are building a team that is diverse, and a culture that values everyone’s ideas and lived experience. It is important that our workforce is as diverse as the patients we aim to help with our therapies.
Business ethics: We set and follow high standards of conduct and accountability. We promote ethical behaviour through transparent policies and practices.
Supply chain management: We seek to work with suppliers whose values align with our own. We recognise that much of our impact sits in our supply chain, so it is important for us to collaborate with our suppliers to understand and address environmental and social impacts.
Environmental stewardship: We strive to minimise the negative impacts our business activities have on the environment.

Team wellbeing

As a mental health care company, we aspire to be a leader in building a workplace that reduces the stigma of mental illness and fosters wellbeing.

To us, employee wellbeing starts with our culture, ways of working, the benefits we provide, and the support each of our team members receives in defining and pursuing their career aspirations. We also offer a holistic, optional programme to support the physical and mental wellbeing of our team members.

76 %

of team members agreed with the statement “Compass prioritises my wellbeing.”

75 %

of team members agreed with the statement “I have a real sense of belonging working at Compass.”

Our actions

Diversity, equity and inclusion

We are building a team that is diverse, and a culture that values everyone’s ideas and lived experience. It is important that our workforce is as diverse as the patients we aim to help with our therapies.

39 %

women in executive management²

12 %

LBGTQ+ team members³

90 %

of team members agreed with the statement “We are inclusive at Compass.”

Our actions

In 2021, we established our first Global diversity, equity, and inclusion policy, which covers topics like our practices and policies on recruitment, compensation, and employee development and training. The policy seeks to ensure that our organisation is as diverse as the patients we aim to help with our therapies. We periodically conduct workplace harassment training and inclusion training to build awareness and capabilities in these areas.
- We are connecting with experienced partners to support us to diversify our pool of candidates. We also use job boards dedicated to LGBTQ+, ethnic minorities, and neurodivergent job applicants.
- We have undertaken a gap analysis to identify ways to attract, retain and support people with neurodivergent traits. We have improved the accessibility of our website for people with visual impairments. We also invite candidates to notify us if any disability accommodations are needed in the interview process.
- We are a signatory to the UK Disability Confident Scheme, which aims to help organisations employ disabled people. Disability Confident is creating a movement of change, encouraging employers to think differently about disability and take action to improve how they recruit, retain, and develop disabled people. Representatives for disabled peoples and employers developed the scheme to make it rigorous but easily accessible.
- We are members of the Employers Network for Equality and Inclusion (ENEI). ENEI are our external advisors and help us to improve our DEIB policies and practices.
- We have given team members the option to voluntarily provide their personal demographic information to enable us to measure our workforce diversity and set goals to improve diversity. See more data here.

Business ethics

We set and follow high standards of conduct and accountability. We promote ethical behaviour through transparent policies and practices.

Our actions

Our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics governs the business-related conduct of directors, officers, employees, and designated consultants. The Board of Directors review this policy annually. All employees are required to read and comply with the Code. The Code has three main purposes:
- to drive ethical business performance and encourage a culture of integrity and accountability.
- to provide support to employees around ethical decision making and doing the right thing.
- to develop a Speak Up culture and encourage employees to raise their concerns about potential ethical issues.
Employees are encouraged to report any activity that may be in violation of the Code of Ethics to management. We also offer a confidential Speak Up Line for allegations of Code violations which gives an opportunity for anonymous reporting. We always aim to protect the reporter of an allegation against retaliation.
Data privacy is of the utmost importance to us. We collect clinical trial participant data in two ways: (1) through the patient-facing myPathfinder application, which provides guidance to patients throughout COMP360 psilocybin treatment; and (2) recording of patient sessions. Participants are informed of how their anonymised data will be used, and of their rights under applicable privacy laws. We do not store any personally identifiable information or data. We have deployed a completely blinded cloud-based infrastructure to store patient data. Analytics on patient data is done on anonymised data automatically.

In terms of our cybersecurity, we continuously evaluate our Microsoft Azure infrastructure for security and potential attack vectors. We have a 97% Microsoft Security score, compared to 32% for similarly sized companies. We have independent periodic penetration testing to conduct additional security screening. We work to obtain warranties that our vendors are implementing appropriate data and cybersecurity controls to ensure our vendor systems are secure.
As part of our animal welfare work, we have joined the Concordat o n Openness on Animal Resea rch in the UK, which involves reporting annually how, why, and when animals have been involved in preclinical research for Compass. As members of Und erstanding Animal Research, we support education and refinement of the use of animals in research.

To uphold our responsibility to produce high quality, ethically driven research, we ensure all studies commissioned by us, and conducted by our preclinical research partners, meet animal welfare protocols. We adhere to the principles of the ‘3Rs’ (Replacement, Reduction & Refinement) of animal models in preclinical research. Where suitable non-animal alternatives are unavailable, we conduct ethical appraisals and design studies in a way that minimises animal use and impact, while maintaining scientific rigour. We implement these animal welfare protocols consistently across all our preclinical research and discuss the importance of animal welfare with our research partners to ensure we align on these values. Read more about our animal welfare practices here.

Supply chain management

We seek to work with suppliers whose values align with our own. We recognise that much of our impact sits in our supply chain, so it is important for us to collaborate with our suppliers to understand and address environmental and social impacts.

Our actions

We are enhancing our third-party risk management approach. Our updated approach allows us to better understand where risks sit in our supply chain. Key supply-related risks have been identified and treatment plans are in place.
As part of our supplier due diligence process, we are evaluating the inclusion of ESG criteria, such as human rights, diversity, carbon emissions, and health and safety. This will help us evaluate the relative maturity of potential suppliers.

Environmental stewardship

We strive to minimise the negative impacts our business activities have on the environment.

Our actions

Investigational COMP360 is manufactured and packaged in the UK. It is packaged in a lightweight plastic bottle, which minimises freight costs and energy. We are working to further reduce the environmental footprint of our packaging by studying the feasibility of transitioning to blister packs for commercial launch.

We are in the process of calculating our carbon and water footprints. We will use this information to evaluate actions needed to reduce the impacts from our operations and supply chain.
Environmental stewardship is promoted throughout our organisation by an employee environmental committee. In 2022, the committee organised an auction to reuse office technology. A total of 16 laptops were sold, effectively prolonging the functional life of Compass technology that, although no longer fit for the intensity of Compass work, still works well for personal use.
We believe environmental issues need to be addressed at the industry-level. We are eager to learn from and support sector-wide collaborative actions to help build sustainable solutions, and develop the data, frameworks and standards required for policy change. The Sustainable Medicine Partnership is a not-for-profit, private-public, multi-stakeholder collaborative of 42 organisations aiming to make the use of medicines less wasteful. Click here to read about the four-year programme to build science-based, scalable solutions to reduce waste from medicines.

Footnotes

^{1 https://www.qualtrics.com/uk/experience-management/employee/employee-net-promoter-score/}

^{2 Voluntary response rate of 89%. Positions with a reporting line at most two levels from the CEO. Bands I, J and ET.}

^{3 Voluntary response rate of 60%.}

^{Data points – Refer to data as of December 31, 2022. See more impact data here.}

Responsible organisation

We strive to be a responsible organisation, through the working environment we create for our team, the way we engage with our stakeholders, and our business practices.

Team wellbeing

As a mental health care company, we aspire to be a leader in building a workplace that reduces the stigma of mental illness and fosters wellbeing.

Our actions

We have a holistic wellbeing programme designed to include all aspects of mental and physical wellbeing, from exercising to relationships.

We have flexible ways of working policies designed to accommodate a variety of working styles.

We are creating a workplace of belonging.

We provide competitive compensation and comprehensive company paid benefits.

Diversity, equity and inclusion

We are building a team that is diverse, and a culture that values everyone’s ideas and lived experience. It is important that our workforce is as diverse as the patients we aim to help with our therapies.

Our actions

Our policies and training support diversity, equity, and inclusion as a business imperative.

We are making changes to our processes to recruit minority talent.

We look for ways to continually improve our practices.

Business ethics

We set and follow high standards of conduct and accountability. We promote ethical behaviour through transparent policies and practices.

Our actions

Our interactions are guided by our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics.

We have mechanisms for employees to report violations of the Code.

We take measures for data privacy and cybersecurity.

We act to minimise the use of animals in our research programmes. Where animal research is required by law, we ensure it is conducted in line with internationally recognised principles and standards.

Supply chain management

We seek to work with suppliers whose values align with our own. We recognise that much of our impact sits in our supply chain, so it is important for us to collaborate with our suppliers to understand and address environmental and social impacts.

Our actions

We are enhancing our third-party risk management system.

We are evaluating sustainable procurement actions to take in the future.

Environmental stewardship

We strive to minimise the negative impacts our business activities have on the environment.

Our actions

We are working to minimise the negative impacts of our business activities.

We encourage our team members to engage with our environmental stewardship initiatives.

We are a founding collaborator of the Sustainable Medicines Partnership.

Footnotes