The below content was previously published on https://betterworldcasinos.com/operators/aspire-global/ but has been replaced with an updated review on November 3, 2023
BWC Sustainability score: At this point, I am not assigning a sustainability score yet as I am working on analysing more companies. I first want to have a better understanding of the performance of more stakeholders to be able to make a fair comparison in terms of who complies, who competes and who leads when it comes to social, environmental and governance performance.
Last updated: September 2022
In this tier 2 review, I present general information about the company that I have been able to find. A list of used resources can be found at the bottom of this page.
I have a partnership with some of the Aspire brands. Soon I hope to have the opportunity to talk to them regarding their ESG performance and ambitions to determine how sustainable they are and how they contribute to society.
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The initial review of Aspire Global is based on information on their website and both the annual and sustainability reports of 2021. Links to all sources used can be found at the bottom of this page.
The company
Aspire Global is listed on Nasdaq First North Premier Growth Market and was founded as NeoPoint Technologies Ltd in 2005. It is a B2B (Business to business) provider of iGaming services, which means that they offer all that is needed to run an iGaming company.
After acquisitioning game studio Pariplay (2019) and sportsbook platform BtoBet (2020), they have recently themselves been taken over by Neogames in June 2022.
Aspire has over 600 employees and operates in 31 regulated markets from their head office in Malta. More than 50 companies operate on their platform that offers over 170 iGaming brands.
Over 2021 the company reported a revenue of € 160 million leading to € 18 million earnings after tax.
Aspire Global casino brands
Sustainability
The committee responsible for all sustainability matters consists of 5 members among which the CEO, CFO and the sustainability manager. As mentioned, Aspire publishes a dedicated sustainability report that applies the GRI reporting standard.
They have integrated sustainability in their business strategy by focussing on four areas “aimed at the long-term well-being of all our stakeholders”. These areas are:
- Environment
- Safe user experience
- People
- Safe digital environment
- Environmental
- Emissions
The emissions of the Aspire Global Group have been assessed by Carbon Footprint Ltd. This assessment happens annually and has helped Aspire Global to reach carbon neutrality in 2021 by monitoring, reducing and offsetting GHG emissions.
Although carbon neutral, total GHG emissions increased by 13% from 2020 to 2021. Although the increase is not clarified, they do report that the emissions per employee and per amount of turnover have decreased by 11 and 14% respectively.
About half of the total emissions are caused by transportation, the main contributor in daily operations seems to be the high energy use servers that are their main concern.
Water & Waste
In all offices waste is recycled according to the local schemes and policies in combination with an environmental awareness campaign promoting matters like less paper and one-time plastics use. For 2022 a Group environmental policy is to be implemented based on “reduce, reuse, recycle”.
Transport
As mentioned about half of the company’s emissions are caused by travelling, this can be broken down to 75% coming from air travel and 25% from employee commuting.
There is no mention that Global Aspire operates their own fleet of vehicles, however they mention that they encourage use of green commuting options and carpooling for their employees. Their commitment for 2022 is to focus on reducing travel by applying what has been learned during the lockdowns as well as focussing on airlines that offer cleaner flights but using biofuel etc.
Procurement
Aspire sources services and products by means of a “sustainable sourcing process” aimed at reliable long term relationships that “protects the interests of all stakeholders”. Unfortunately it is not mentioned if and how specific ESG criteria are shared with or applied to the partners and suppliers.
Social
Workplace
Aspire is a relatively small company with, at the time of the report, almost 550 employees working in 8 different locations in different countries. Of the employees respectively 90% and 87% of employees would recommend Aspire as an employer and love the atmosphere and working there.
On the whole only 31% of the employees are female, which is 5% less than the previous year and moving away from their aim to have a 40/60 (f/m) distribution.
Although the imbalance is largely caused by a large number of development and technology roles (which account for more than half of the staff and has 80% men), it is noticeable that the percentage of women lowers the higher we look up the ladder. The board of 4 members consists only of men.
Noticeably there is no mention about a pay gap, they only mention paying “fair” wages.
As typical in the iGaming industry, there is no mention of anything that resembles a labour unions and/or work council.
Community Participation
Although “employee volunteering days” are mentioned and several examples, there is no mention if and how many days the company gives the employees to do so.
Also with regards to sponsorships and donations no clear numbers are mentioned, just a few examples that seem little if you consider the 8 different locations/countries the company is present.
Players
With regards to Responsible Gaming the company seems to do it’s share and takes its responsibility within what can be expected. There are collaborations with universities with the aim to research, educate and treat gambling issues.
At the player facing side Aspire focuses on clear labelling which informs players on risks of gambling and helps them to recognize emerging undesirable habits.
Governance
Compliance
This year’s sustainability report has been created according to the “core option” of the GRI standards in which only important elements are included, in contrast to the “comprehensive option” which should include all elements.
Policies
By having a Sustainability committee composed of board members and higher management as well as having implemented GRI reporting, Aspire is taking ESG seriously as a driver of long term sustainable operations.
They have aligned their sustainability goals with six of the UN’s SDGs, namely ‘good health and wellbeing’, ‘gender equality’, ‘affordable and clean energy’, ‘industry, innovation and infrastructure’, ‘peace justice and strong institutions’ and ‘partnerships for the goals’.
Find out how Aspire Global compares to 4 other operators
Source material
Websites:
Reports:
