Social
We empower our people, partners, and customers to change the world. Invinity is committed to driving the social value agenda forward and to making a positive change through our operations and wider activities. This includes supporting government-led initiatives as is appropriate to our business.
The majority of our staff live close to our locations, with many having transitioned from the Oil & Gas industry to work in renewables and having a wide range of backgrounds.
Our business growth and development incorporate:
/ Significant levels of local employment in our offices in the UK, Canada and the US;
/ A commitment to being a great place to work by providing health and wellbeing support for all our staff, helping our people to remain safe and healthy;
/ Collaborating with our communities, particularly through partnerships with the education sector, providing the opportunity for work experience and internships and supporting national initiatives such as the UK Government’s STEM agenda. Four of our interns have been recruited into full-time positions over the last two years; and
/ Apprenticeships and volunteering are two areas of positive social impact we are looking to progress in the near future.
Our commitment to Health and Safety remains non-negotiable and we retain a zero-tolerance approach to accidents and injuries. Our commitment is that all our people should finish their working day as healthily as they started it.
Health and safety statistics on accidents and near misses
United Kingdom | Canada | Other Locations | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | |
Average No. Employees | 61 | 68 | 49 | 68 | 65 | 36 | 9 | 12 | 8 |
Reportable Lost Time Acidents | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Minor Accident | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
Near Miss(No Injury) | 2 | 8 | 0 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 0 |
First Aid | 0 | 1 | Not reported in past | 0 | 1 | Not reported in past | 0 | 0 | Not reported in past |
Invinity’s commitment to the growing renewable economy
Invinity recognises that the increased use of renewable energy, combined with an intensified electrification of national grids and transport networks, could prove decisive for the world to meet is key climate goals by 2050 and limit the rise of global temperatures. Furthermore, if the world is able to transition to a global energy mix which includes over 50% of renewable generated electricity, this would have a dramatic effect on reducing the use of fossil fuels for electricity generation and cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The Company already employs a number of former Oil & Gas workers across its global locations who bring their considerable engineering, product and infrastructure project management expertise. These key transferrable skills enable many workers to move relatively seamlessly into roles in clean energy and Invinity is proud to support this transition, as it ensures that important energy sector knowledge is both maintained and enhanced.
As part of the global STEM agenda, Invinity also works closely with universities and their research departments given the important role chemistry plays in our flow battery product. Many of our researchers came directly from university departments and our research team often presents at key industrial and academic conferences where research findings are discussed to ensure continued best practice.
Internship programme and case studies
Invinity partners with the University of British Columbia, a top-tier Canadian University, and Simon Fraser University, to provide meaningful work experience to undergraduate engineers under a work-study program called CO-OP.
In Canada, study programmes known as CO-OPs incorporate paid work terms in field companies where students carry out tasks linked to their careers. These programs intend to give valuable work experience to the students while building an essential pipeline of talent that Invinity can hire after they graduate.
A third year Sustainable Energy Engineering student joined us as an Energy Storage Intern for the September 2021 four-month term.
The student was primarily involved in supporting early-stage commercial discussions with clients and working on compiling energy market research for North America investigating the potential for long duration energy storage deployment in various territories. Other work included a number of small-scale projects carrying out some techno-economic modelling for clients to help support the development of their business cases.
This was the student’s first significant experience dealing with electricity markets and utilities so there was a good opportunity to learn the fundamentals of the various energy markets we were investigating as well as gain a good understanding of the different mechanisms energy utilities use to charge customers. There was a significant amount of data processing and analysis which the student hadn’t done to the same extent previously and it was a good opportunity to work with a number of energy modelling tools that we had created in-house to learn how the analysis process works from start to finish.
A second year Engineering Physics student joined us as a Software Co-op for the January 2022 four-month term.
The focus for the co-op term was to develop real features into our product. They worked in the software team and during their term they developed a tool that upgrades our Firmware in the field.
This was their first co-op experience and they gained valuable knowledge on software development in a professional team setting. Taking what they have learned on engineering development in their degree and applying it in a professional setting. They focused on learning to build robust code that is maintainable. It was an opportunity for them to understand the bigger picture and impact of developing in a team environment where their code has real world impact on others development. They gained firsthand experience and knowledge from the experienced software engineers in the team.