At the International Broadcast Centre on London’s Olympic Park, we are bringing materials in by rail wherever possible and transporting pre-fabricated parts at night, to ease pressure on local roads.
On our Hartlepool Community Healthcare Project, 85% of our supply chain spend has been with companies within a 20-mile radius.
Our building projects earned seven Silver Awards and 11 Bronze Awards from the Considerate Constructors Scheme in 2009.
Transforming futures
As a major contractor in the Building Schools for the Future programme, we support the Transformation Trust. This Trust funds extra-curricular activities to ensure all children have access to the same opportunities in areas such as sport and the arts.
Dorothy Butters received the Carillion Annual Values Award for ‘Living the Values’. She also received an award for the ‘Most Outstanding Job Coach’ in the Manchester/North West area.
Champion!
Carillion Building’s Tony Fleming was voted Business in the Community’s Midlands Region Volunteer of the Year 2009. Now retired, Tony was a Business Action on Homelessness champion and comes back to volunteer with us when needed.
£255,000 has been donated to date, to support 44 Natural Habitats projects across the UK
100 trees were planted in Dubai on World Environment Day by volunteers from companies including Al Futtaim Carillion
Communities
By investing in communities, we strengthen our reputation and support our future business success.
In the short term, community investment enhances people’s perceptions of us as a company, but we also see the long-term benefits. When we invest in local communities, we contribute to the creation of an economically sustainable society. Since our future customers, employees and suppliers are to come from this society, it is in our interests for it to prosper.
Many of our projects, such as schools and hospitals, are inherently valuable to communities. We work on these projects on a commercial basis but often include additional community benefits in the scope of our works. For example, in Brierley Hill in the West Midlands, we are working on the Sustainable Access Network to reduce congestion and improve air quality. Our additional contributions to the community include renovating a nearby primary school’s playground, providing work experience placements and enhancing the environment around a community centre.
For every major project, Carillion develops a community engagement plan, underpinned by our Community Policy and strategy. In the plan, we assess our likely impacts on entering, operating in and leaving the community. We recognise our operations may cause problems for some community members and we consult with them to minimise those. All our building and civil engineering projects are also registered with the Considerate Constructors Scheme. As such we are committed to meeting a number of requirements including keeping noise and dust to a minimum and planning our working hours to reduce inconvenience to the local community. Sites are assessed for their performance against these requirements and in 2009 we achieved an average score of 34.72 out of 40. This compares to an industry average of 31.88 and our 2008 score of 34.12.
For some community members, our arrival may result in employment or other benefits: on many projects we commit to employing local labour wherever possible. We also aim to source from the local supply chain where we can. For example, 90% of the supply chain spend on our Nottingham Building Schools for the Future projects has gone to suppliers within a 50-mile radius of Nottingham, and nearly half of that is within Nottingham postcodes. Our larger projects all have a dedicated Community Liaison Officer whose role is to communicate openly with local people and support community involvement.
All employees are encouraged to volunteer with community projects and are given time during working hours to do so. Since 2001, we have given 1% of our pre-tax profits each year to community activities, through a combination of employees’ time, cash and in-kind donations. In addition to the partnerships discussed below, our 2009 community involvement included:
- > Al Futtaim Carillion donating 32 computers to the Wasit Model Girls’ School in Sharjah
- > upgrading an access track to allotments in Telford
- > employees based at King’s Cross building a reading garden for a local school
- > donating a playhouse to the Barnardo’s Family Centre in Gateshead.
Community partnerships
Through long-term partnerships with selected organisations and by focusing on particular types of support, such as work with schools, we can have greater impact. Our main community partnerships are outlined below.
Business Action on Homelessness (BAOH) supports homeless people, and those at risk of becoming homeless, in finding work. It provides ‘work readiness’ training and organises work placements. In 2009, Carillion provided 107 twoweek placements against a target of 100, and offered continued employment to 10 of those, with a further 16 people finding alternative full-time employment outside Carillion. For every person who joins us on a BAOH placement, one of our employees also volunteers to coach them for six months afterwards. The success of the programme relies on these coaches: people like Dorothy Butters, who was presented with BAOH’s award for the ‘Most Outstanding Job Coach’ in the Manchester/North West area. In 2009, Dorothy coached a man in his 20s who, although lacking in confidence, was desperate to work. Dorothy’s support, which continued long after his placement at Carillion, helped the man to secure a job with a local building firm. Gavin Clarke, Programme Manager for BAOH, comments, “Dorothy is one of many who undertake this role with the enthusiasm and professionalism it requires, but again the award places Carillion in a position of leading its peers in supporting the BAOH programme.” Our BAOH targets have increased for 2010: we aim to offer 120 placements and train an additional 30 of our people to become job coaches.
We also support CRASH, the property and construction industries’ charity for homeless people. It helps charities improve the buildings they use to deliver services to homeless people. Carillion contributes to CRASH with both financial donations and involvement in their fundraising events.
Al Futtaim Carillion has brought business improvement and community involvement together through its 10,000 Tiny Steps initiative. Employees are encouraged to submit ideas for enhancing the way the company works, with four cash prizes being given each month for the best ideas. For the first year of the initiative, the company has matched these prizes with donations to Dubai’s Little Wings Foundation. This organisation performs surgery on children with muscularskeletal disabilities, and it will receive over AED 23,000 (approximately £4,000) from Al Futtaim Carillion.
Through the Carillion Natural Habitats Fund, we provide financial support for The Wildlife Trusts. To date, the Fund has given £255,000 to support 44 projects across the UK. We prioritise requests for funding of projects that are near Carillion sites, so that our employees can also volunteer to work on the projects we support. In 2009, these included building an otter holt in Suffolk and restoring dunes in Lancashire.
Work with schools is a major part of our community activity. Employees on many projects donate their time to improve facilities, such as playgrounds, with Carillion or our supply chain partners donating the materials and equipment. We regularly give presentations in schools on safety around construction sites. Our employees also volunteer to help students’ learning, including providing work placements and hosting challenges such as Girls Into Construction.
Sustainability Week
Each year, we hold a Sustainability Week to coincide with World Environment Day. In 2009, the theme was carbon reduction and hundreds of events were organised across the Group. These promoted actions to cut carbon emissions, as well as raising funds for charity. Events ranging from raffles and quizzes to mobile telephone recycling drives delivered a grand total of £6,500, which was donated to The Prince’s Trust.
Birthday support for charities
Carillion celebrated its 10th birthday in 2009 and decided to mark the occasion by giving to charity. A £25,000 celebration fund was set up and employees were invited to nominate good causes. Over 250 suggestions were made, from which 50 were selected across the UK, Canada and the Middle East. The organisations, which received £500 each, included the Alzheimer’s Society, the Children’s Wish Foundation of Canada, Water Aid and the Dubai-based Al Noor Training Centre for Children with Special Needs.
