Environmental Social Governance

A clear social purpose, backed by environmental action and strong governance...

LiveMore is your sustainable lender.

With a clearly defined social purpose backed by environmental action and effective governance, LiveMore is your ESG-compliant lender.

When we were founded in 2019, our mission was to provide mortgages to those aged 50-90+, a demographic who are too often underserved by high street lenders. With our commitment to a sustainable future, we proactively reflect the environmental priorities of our employees and customers. Additionally, our lending practices meet the best market standards, so that our borrowers are always protected.

Environmental

Climate action starts at home

At LiveMore, we believe that a healthy planet is the foundation for a healthy home. That's why we’re proud to be taking meaningful steps towards reducing our environmental impact and contributing to a sustainable future. As part of our Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) strategy, we are committed to offsetting our Scope 1 carbon operational footprint and playing our part in the fight against climate change.

Quite simply, sustainable housing matters...

We support the purchase of energy-efficient properties, as well as the improvement of environmental performance in existing buildings. We are even looking to develop green mortgage products for this purpose, so watch this space.

We’ve introduced the collection of EPC (Energy Performance Certificate) data and other climate risk data on our securitisation portfolio as part of our fact-finding process, which allowed us to determine the average EPC rating score of the securitised portfolio and to identify improvement ranges in preparation for and alignment with government goals to increase the EPC efficiency of UK residential homes.

Key Points:

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    The Green Branch initiative:

    We’ve partnered with The Green Branch – a leading carbon offset provider and B Corporation – to offset our irreducible carbon footprint by supporting an incredible forestry project in Brazil—an initiative designed to protect and restore vital ecosystems, which play a crucial role in absorbing CO2 and fighting deforestation.

    Through this project, we help plant new trees, restore damaged forests, and protect biodiversity, all while ensuring that local communities in Brazil benefit from long-term sustainable practices.

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    Energy Saving Initiatives:

    In addition, our teams in our London and Glasgow offices champion energy-saving initiatives to keep our carbon footprint in check. We proactively encourage recycling, hybrid working, reduced electricity usage and paperless communication.

Social

We passionately believe that a mortgage has a positive social impact...

LiveMore was created to bridge a gap in society caused by the shortfall in quality mortgage finance for later-life borrowers. We are committed to offering innovative products to meet the unique needs of borrowers aged 50-90+.

Going the extra mile:

  • Our standard mortgage products improve financial inclusion for an underserved target group as defined in the ICMA (International Capital Markets Association) Social Bond Principles (2021) and support socioeconomic advancement and empowerment (access to and control over assets and services) for ageing populations as defined in the ICMA Social Bond Principles (2021).
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  • Reduce inequalities in housing by providing access to finance, while improving the livelihoods of older borrowers whose wellbeing is underpinned by staying in their homes.
  • Our manual underwriting approach seeks to understand our customers’ unique circumstances and sets us apart from others’ more rigid underwriting processes.
  • Our Vulnerable Customer Policy is designed to identify and address customer vulnerability throughout their relationship with LiveMore. This unique approach is monitored and reviewed by our Vulnerable Customer Committee, which meets monthly.

100% of our standard mortgage lending serves a group of social borrowers (underserved ageing population) as defined in the ICMA Social Bond Principles 2021. Our standard mortgage products contribute to the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, Targets 10.2 and 10.3, “Reducing Inequalities”.

And we love looking out for our own people too...

  • As a fast-growing business, we rely on a strong workforce. We measure employee wellbeing in quarterly surveys, aiming to increase their overall wellbeing score twice a year.
  • LiveMore is committed to flexible and remote/hybrid work through all employment agreements. 
  • We are building an inclusive culture through our Equality and Diversity Policy and set measurable targets for improving gender equality, which are reviewed annually. In the past six months (to April 2024) the proportion of senior female employees increased by 20%, and LiveMore’s gender female:male ratio increased by 14%. This was achieved by using a gender decoder tool to avoid subtle masculine-coded words that could discourage female candidates.
  • New starters receive structured and tailored onboarding. Onboarding starts as soon as the employee signs their contract, up to their six-month anniversary, and includes regular wellbeing checks. 
  • We’re committed to retaining our strong workforce:
  • We hold stay interviews with all employees.
  • Employee feedback is regularly shared with leadership, and we ensure that material changes have been implemented.
  • All our people are trained on regulatory and practical matters including ESG topics to create awareness throughout the workforce.

Governance

A strong governance foundation...

Our governance policy forms the cornerstone ofhow we protect our customers. Here’s how we do it:

  • Our Credit and Responsible Lending Policy is aligned with best market practices.
  • Customers benefit from the robust governance and reporting structure of an FCA-approved company with strong corporate risk management.
  • LiveMore complies with the SMCR (Senior Management and Certification Regime) of the FCA.
  • We have strong data protection policies to safeguard our customers, alongside Cyber Essentials accreditation, as part of our overall strategy of data protection.
  • We comply with FCA guidelines around supporting vulnerable customers by checking in with them regularly to offer any support that they may need.
  • We have a designated committee structure across the business, including Conduct, Risk & Compliance committees.
  • Internal training is providedregularly to our staff to address governance, compliance and culture frameworks, while external training is used as appropriate for specific requirements (e.g., specific FCA responsibilities).
  • LiveMore has developed a Vulnerable Customer Strategy and has a Vulnerable Customer Committee established that enables vulnerabilities to be identified, provide flexible customer focused solutions and ensure monitoring is robust.

LiveMore also has a robustmanagement and governance framework. This involves various levels of management meetings as well as Board and Committee meetings throughout the year

In addition, we manage risk through adherence to regulatory, data protection and other methods. As a small business, we seek to maintain superior levels of communication and transparency through constant open dialogue, while also maintaining the discipline of Board and Board Committee meetings.

The Board also benefits from its Advisory Board members, each of whom bring specific relevant skills and depth of knowledge and experience to our business.

LiveMore is committed to providing a service that is compliant, professional, efficient and valued by its customers and commercial partners. A crucial element of this is meeting our obligations under the Consumer Duty and adhering to the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) Principles for Business Principle 12 ‘firms must act to deliver good outcomes for retail customers’ and the associated cross-cutting rules and consumer outcomes.