1.2 Our First Corporate Environmental Report

Corporate environmental and social responsibility is a business issue and as a corporate citizen we recognise our responsibilities.  In particular, the importance for all major companies to address and report on their environmental performance is acknowledged.  This report builds on, and extends our commitment, which in past years has seen community and environmental information integrated into our annual report.

In common with many other organisations who have begun to consider in detail their environmental performance, we do not currently have a comprehensive  set of accurate historical environmental performance data.  Steps have been introduced to address this concern.  A structured and systematic internal monitoring and reporting framework has been developed to provide robust data for next year’s report and to aid consistency in the reporting process.  To assist this, we have adopted a standard form for data collection and reporting, with standardised units of measurement (‘key performance indicators’) based on good practice, which we are now completing on a quarterly basis.  The implication of incomplete datasets has been to limit the number of quantitative performance targets for the objectives identified.  This is an issue that has been recognised and will be addressed during this year as complete performance information becomes available.

We have completed this report with input from our stakeholders, including employees, the government and environmental regulators, our current and potential customers, pressure groups, our suppliers and contractors, and our shareholders.  Its completion has also been aided by reference to the following guidelines:

• CERES and Global Reporting Initiative;
• Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs General Guidelines on Environmental Reporting;
• SustainAbility System for Corporate Environmental Reports.

The report is available via the our internet site to reduce the amount of resources consumed in its production and distribution; however, if required, a hard copy is available on request.