For a second consecutive year, on-site service solutions specialist Sodexo has achieved a Gold band ranking in Business in the Community’s (BITC) 2012 Corporate Responsibility Index, widely recognised as the UK’s leading voluntary benchmark for responsible business practice.
Now into its tenth year, the initiative includes organisations that achieved the 100 highest scores in BITC’s CR Index following an assessment of management practices and performance in four key areas of corporate responsibility: environment, community, marketplace and workplace.
Sodexo achieved the Gold band ranking once again after demonstrating that the organisation continues to integrate corporate responsibility throughout its operations by “providing a systematic approach to managing, measuring and reporting on the economic, social and environmental impacts” of its business. In practice this is achieved through the ‘Better Tomorrow Plan’, the company’s worldwide sustainability strategy towards 2020.
Sodexo has been listed on the CR Index for seven years now and, before achieving Gold band ranking last year, held Silver status for four years running.
Thomas Jelley, corporate citizenship manager at Sodexo, said: “We’re thrilled to have achieved the Gold band ranking for a second consecutive year. It’s a great endorsement of Sodexo’s ‘Better Tomorrow Plan’ and the efforts of colleagues across the UK and Ireland who have helped to bring it to life through continuous improvements in both management and performance.”
Stephen Howard, the CEO of Business in the Community, added: “I congratulate Sodexo on achieving Gold band ranking in the 2012 BITC Corporate Responsibility Index. The CR Index has helped to highlight those Best Practice examples that bring to life in a powerful way what integrated responsible practice really looks like.”
Howard added: “As we celebrate ten years of our CR Index it has given me great pleasure to witness each company’s responsible business journey and the transformations they are making both within their businesses and the impact they have in our communities.”
This month, Sodexo publishes its seventh annual corporate citizenship report highlighting the company’s sustainability performance across the business against Key Performance Indicators set out in the ‘Better Tomorrow Plan’.
ISS reports improved corporate responsibility performance throughout 2011
ISS A/S has released its annual Corporate Responsibility Report (CR Report) which shows that the company’s CR performance improved over a broad set of measures.
The ‘lost time incidents frequency’ decreased by 23%, CO2 emissions from ISS’ leased vehicles were reduced by 4% and almost 12,000 new jobs were created across the world during 2011.
The report covers ISS’ worldwide focus areas for the 2011 fiscal year and is built around its prioritised corporate responsibility issues which are: labour rights, Human Rights, the environment and anti-corruption.
Through the company strategy ‘The ISS Way’, ISS is committed to being “the best facility services company in the world”. Achieving this vision, though, depends on ISS’ ability to win in the marketplace, the workplace and in the community. Corporate responsibility plays a central role in each of these fields.
Joseph Nazareth – head of ISS’ Group Health, Safety & Environment and Corporate Responsibility operations – commented: “We’re very pleased that our corporate responsibility performance improved over a broad set of measures in 2011. ISS is focused on meeting its customers’ needs, including improving performance and reducing risks related to corporate responsibility. We’re particularly persistent in our efforts to reach our goal of zero fatalities among our more than 530,000 employees. We think of colleagues as members of our family, and we want our family to be safe.”
Highlights from the CR Report for 2011 include:
