Social Progress
How we interact with our stakeholders, especially our own people and the communities within which we operate, will directly affect our impact on society and its ability to make progress.
The community aspect of sustainability is one which we are beginning to understand better and to help provide a focus to our community issues we have enlisted the support of Mr. David Cowans, Chief Executive of Places for People Group, as an advisor to our sustainability committee.
As we employ over 18,000 people, work with nearly 10,000 suppliers and operate in many towns and cities within the UK and abroad, the decisions we make everyday can influence the quality of life in those communities, for example:
- Do we provide good working conditions?
- Do we provide our staff with the necessary learning to ensure that they develop the skills they need and want?
- Do we provide equal opportunities for all?
- Do we employ local people on our projects or do we ask staff to travel long distances and lodge away from their family and friends?
- Do we use locally produced materials?
- Do we plan our activities to minimise the negative impacts that we can have on local communities?
- Do we design structures that people really want?
- Do we provide for community needs within our activities?
- Do we provide appropriate access to our structures to prevent social exclusion?
- Do we invest our pension fund wisely and ethically?
This list could be extended and made specific for every section of our business. However, the message is the same, as a large international organisation we have a responsibility to ensure that the way in which we interact with our stakeholders (communities, businesses and our staff) is done in a responsible and informed manner.
The following sections highlight our 2002 performance in the four areas we consider to be our most significant social progress impacts;
Our Key Social Performance Indicators can be viewed within the Key Performance Indicators section of the report.
Our interactions with suppliers can be viewed in the Supply Chain section of the report. |
