Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) and Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DIB) are at the center of many conversations right now, but at GitLab, these are two important issues that have been integral parts of GitLab’s business and culture, even before we explicitly used the term “ESG.”
How we think about this work shows up in the management and oversight of our business. It’s evident in how we approach remote work and develop our products, and our approach aligns with our values, one of which is DIB.
While we’ve always woven ESG practices into our business, we heard from you, our customers, our investors, our community members, and our team members, that there was more that we could do. That’s why we published our first ESG and DIB reports. With our transparency value in mind, we felt it was key to bring all of these important conversations into one forum, share our progress, and our commitment to continue iterating and to take action on the key topics we and our stakeholders consider most important.
Earlier this year, we conducted our first double materiality assessment. During this process, we spoke with our stakeholders to understand where they want to see GitLab focus our ESG efforts and where we have the potential to have the greatest impact on the environment, society, and our global communities.
Six key topics rose to the top.
1. Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging
DIB is fundamental to the success of GitLab and, as such, is one of our core values. We incorporate the DIB value into all that we do. As a global company, we strive for a team that is representative of our users. We aim to create a work environment that is transparent in nature and fosters a space in which everyone is welcomed. We’ve made great strides in our aspirational DIB goals but we’re not stopping here. Here are a few highlights:
- We increased underrepresented group representation across all job grades, exceeding our CTO and CEO aspirational quarterly goals focused on URG management and senior leadership,
- We reached 37% for women in senior leadership roles, exceeding our aspirational goal by 7%.
- We established three new Team Member Resource Groups focused on inclusion and belonging: Caregiving, Global Voices, and Black at GitLab.
Check out our DIB report for all of the latest details.
2. Greenhouse gas emissions
Part of doing responsible business means minimizing our environmental footprint. GitLab is a fully remote company without direct emissions from company-owned facilities or direct energy consumption. Accordingly, our greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory measures Scope 3 emissions only, specifically the emissions associated with remote work, purchased goods and services, cloud services, and business travel. We will use the results of the inventory to better understand our key sources of emissions, set reduction goals using fiscal year 2023 as a baseline, develop a reduction plan, and educate our fully remote team on how they can understand and reduce their GHG emissions at home.
3. Talent and engagement
We're a team of helpful, passionate people who want to see each other, GitLab, and the broader GitLab community succeed. We care about what our team members achieve: the code shipped, the user that was made happy, and the team member that was helped. One way we measure engagement is through an annual survey and in fiscal year 2023, we achieved an 82% participation rate and an overall ‘favorable’ engagement score of 81%. The results from our survey will help drive our talent strategy.
4. Information security and data privacy
At GitLab, we know how much security and privacy matter to our customers and stakeholders. We maintain a formal Security Assurance department responsible for monitoring and reporting on GitLab's compliance with various security frameworks and standards. In fiscal year 2023, we received our ISO 27001 certification to include the ISO 27017:2015 cloud security standard and ISO 27018:2019 privacy standard. For more information on our approach to information security and data privacy, please visit our Trust Center.
5. Responsible product development
GitLab's product mission is to consistently create products and experiences that users love and value. Responsible product development is integral to this mission. We are committed to secure and ethical operations as an organization and, beyond that, strive to set an example by empowering our wider GitLab community to build and work with the highest levels of security through our DevSecOps platform.
6. Business ethics
GitLab is committed to the highest standards of legal and ethical business conduct and has long operated its business consistent with written operating principles and policies that reinforce this commitment. Compliance with GitLab’s policies and local and federal rules and laws is the individual responsibility of each team member. Team members are also required to deal honestly, ethically, and fairly with customers, partners, suppliers, competitors, and other third parties.
While we’re excited to share our key programs, policies, and accomplishments in the ESG and DIB reports, we know that the work doesn’t stop here. We’re looking forward to investing more in this space and updating you, our stakeholders, along the way.
