Taylor & Francis joins the B4SI Network

Last year Taylor & Francis says they provided free or heavily discounted products and services, worth over £3 million, to more than 74,000 disadvantaged individuals, academic community groups, and charities. Initiatives supported by Taylor & Francis include accessibility partnerships providing eBooks to students with a print or visual impairment; open access publishing support for researchers in low-income countries; and Special Terms for Authors and Researchers (STAR), a Taylor & Francis scheme giving readers in the Global South free access to journal articles.

By using B4SI’s Framework, the global standard for measuring corporate social impact, Taylor & Francis say they will now be able to analyze these activities in a consistent way and benchmark them objectively against the community investment of other companies in the Network. Taylor & Francis plans to multiply its impact by using insights from the B4SI Framework to grow its community investment strategically.

Catherine Hodgson, sustainability manager at Taylor & Francis, explained: “Community investment is a well-established part of what we do at Taylor & Francis but joining B4SI will help us to measure and better understand the difference our charitable partnerships and programs make to society. The collaboration aspect of B4SI will also be very valuable and we look forward to learning from other organizations about the challenges they’ve overcome and the approaches they’ve found to be most effective”.

Taylor & Francis is part of Informa, whose FasterForward sustainability commitments include contributing the value of at least 1% of profit before tax to community groups and enabling one million disconnected people to access networks and knowledge by 2025.

Examples of Taylor & Francis community investment in action include partnerships in India with the National Federation of the Blind of India, providing accessible education resources for 1,000 children; volunteering events with the Ina Raja Memorial Education Trust, which delivers training to children from underprivileged backgrounds; and skills development activities with Nirantar Prayas, an organization dedicated to supporting children with developmental disabilities.