Business in the Community Index Participation

Although we became members of  Business in the Community (BiTC) in 2003, we had been a part of their benchmarking process, the Environmental Engagement Index, since 2000. BiTC offers its members an opportunity to assess their programmes against an agreed set of criteria.

We complete a questionnaire each autumn, results are published in the Sunday Times the following May after validation of the responses. In 2000, our position just outside the top 100 (106th place) showed how we were only

just starting out, especially in the implementation of ISO14001 across the UK businesses. Since 2002, the Environmental Index has been incorporated into the much

larger Corporate Responsibility Index (CRI).

Over the past six years our score has steadily increased from 73% to 88%. Analysis of that first Index shows that our base of strong leadership, strategy and management processes were not matched by our external communication.

As in previous years’ reports, we show you how we have done in the Index for each of the main four management areas – marketplace, workplace, environment and community. Our results in all these management areas show that we are ahead of the rest of the Construction and Building Materials sector and level with or better than the average for the Index participants as a whole.

Where we do not perform as well is in the areas of impact and performance. In this respect we have to improve in the way we measure our performance against our objectives. This is a function of the way we manage our business. We devolve responsibility to the businesses and generally we do not use corporate objectives. Where we do, it perhaps shows the outside world what really matters: health and safety performance, and CO₂ reduction.