WEX, a global commerce platform, has published its second annual environmental, social, and governance (ESG) report. The new analysis highlights WEX’s impact across 17 countries, 29 locations, and more than 5,000 employees.

The report advances WEX’s ESG efforts organized around four core pillars: people and culture, environmental innovation, environmental stewardship, and social impact – alongside governance practices.

“Over the past two years, I’ve seen how WEX and the customers and partners we serve around the world adapted swiftly to changes in our economies, our businesses, and our communities,” said Melissa Smith, chair and CEO of WEX. “WEX has the ability to be a positive force in our world, allowing our actions to open up possibilities for others. For this reason, we’ve established strong oversight from WEX’s board of directors and executive leadership team focused on where our unique assets and capabilities position WEX to be a successful, responsible leader, considering all of our stakeholders, including the environment and community.”

People and Culture

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the lessons for employers is the importance of building a culture that attracts, develops, and retains talent. WEX has expanded and launched programs to foster a supportive, engaged culture including:

• Benefits: Benefits can help attract and retain talent, particularly initiatives to support mental health. WEX offers well-being campaigns and personal financial counseling, flexible ways of working, virtual fitness classes, and unlimited confidential assistance.

• Learning and Leadership Development: WEX has been focused on ensuring all employees have opportunities to learn and grow their skills. WEX’s Thrive as a People Leader Programs and Resource Center have been implemented to help create a consistent experience for employees through increased manager effectiveness, utilizing standardized ways of leading and supporting their teams and employees.

• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI): In early 2022, WEX’s Board of Directors approved WEX’s 2025 DEI goals to achieve gender parity in leadership roles and increase employees of color in leadership roles by 50%.

Environmental Innovation/Environmental Stewardship

The anticipated transition to a low-carbon future will require widespread adoption of emerging technologies and the development of new resources to track and measure progress toward that end. For WEX, that means building on a legacy of innovation to drive change internally and across its client base.

• Energy Innovation: WEX can support the transition to electric vehicles (EVs) or other forms of efficient transport. As part of its commitment to simplify the complexities of electrification, WEX is working with partners to create an expanded EV charging network. The company is continuing to execute on its roadmap to make sure that it’s well positioned to provide comprehensive solutions for customers and their future mixed fleet needs.

• Internal Stewardship: Understanding the importance of environmental stewardship, WEX has worked to decrease its own carbon footprint and to publicly report its Scope 1 and Scope 2 carbon dioxide. Additionally, WEX is in the process of migrating many of its internal data centers to public cloud service providers. Through 2021, WEX closed 19 data centers, leading to an estimated 58% reduction in data center energy usage since 2019.

Social Impact

WEX is committed to the health and well-being of its customers, partners, employees, and community. For example, WEX offers a global Volunteer Time Off program that provides employees 16 hours of paid time off every year, specifically to give back to their community in a way that is meaningful to them —without having to use their vacation time.