Managing sustainability

The Board evaluates our sustainability performance and assesses and approves new initiatives, such as our latest sustainability strategy.

The Sustainability Advisory Committee is chaired by our Chief Executive, John McDonough, and includes directors from our business units as well as two independent external advisors: Dame Julia Cleverdon DCVO, CBE, Vice President of Business in the Community and Special Advisor to The Prince’s Charities, and Jonathon Porritt, Founder Director of Forum for the Future.

Our Business Leaders’ Sustainability Committee, which implements the sustainability strategy, is chaired by Richard Howson, our Chief Operating Officer and the Board member responsible for sustainability, and is attended by the Managing Director and Health, Safety and Sustainability Director of each business unit. Each member is tasked with identifying and managing the actions needed to embed the strategy in their business unit. This committee is supported by our Sustainability Leadership Team, led by Louise Perry, Group Head of Sustainability, and attended by each business unit Head of Sustainability.

In 2010, after reviewing our UK health, safety and sustainability structure, we created a shared Sustainability, Systems and Quality team to provide specialist advice, develop consistent systems and share best practice. The team also contributes sustainability information for tender documents, which helps us to win work.

All business units have sustainability plans and objectives, which form an integral part of their annual business plans. These are translated into targets for individuals with functional responsibility, senior managers and Executive Directors. Our performance appraisal system ensures that progress against these targets is directly reflected in these individuals’ remuneration.

We raise employees’ awareness of sustainability from when they first join us through a sustainability training module in our new starters’ induction programme. For employees holding sustainability-related responsibilities, we provide tailored specialist training.

At operational site level, we address sustainability issues through the contract-specific risk assessments at contract tender stage. Once the risks have been identified, we monitor and manage them throughout the project.

Our operations all have formal health and safety management systems, with the UK and Middle East and North Africa regions certified to OHSAS 18001. Both these regions also have environmental management systems certified to ISO 14001. Our Sustainability Policy (452 Kb) is supported by Group-wide policies on a range of specific issues, such as our Carbon Policy (668 Kb).

We organise an annual Group-wide Sustainability Week to coincide with World Environment Day in June, to raise our people’s awareness of the environment and the communities in which we live and work. See Communities.

Indices and benchmarks

We take part in leading benchmarking initiatives such as Business in the Community’s (BITC) Corporate Responsibility Index, which ranks companies’ sustainability management and performance. In BITC’s 2010 Index, our score of 96.5% won us Platinum status for the second year running, and was higher than any other company in the support services sector.

Initiatives like this and our inclusion in the FTSE4Good socially responsible investment index also offer our stakeholders the opportunity to see how our business measures up against other organisations.

Business in the Community Corporate Responsibility Index

• Chart
• Table

%

	2007	2008	2009*
Carillion	92.5	96.5	96.5
All index participants	82.6	85.7	86.1