Corporate responsibility (CR) is big news in today’s economy.
CR is all about businesses acting responsibly when it comes to the environment, consumers, employees, communities and stakeholders.
Getting it right can attract new customers, large investments and keep staff turnover low. And business information specialist, Informa plc, is working hard to get it right.
For the past five years the FTSE 250 company has had a CR programme in place, however, it has recently upped its game and improved the way everything works at a divisional level.
The CR programme has shown significant improvements year on year although to date it has been mostly a group level programme supported by the business units, rather than one which is focused on responding to the unique CR issues facing each of Informa’s individual businesses.
This is why we wanted to start looking at CR at a business level, and encourage individual brands within the Group to look at their own CR initiatives which are relevant to them as a business and supports their brands.
Visionary companies increasingly use CR as a way of supporting their business rather than using it as an ‘add-on’. By developing common-sense operational efficiencies such as energy saving programmes or promoting innovation initiatives such as virtual communication or sustainability focused products, we are adding to the bottom line. Vitally, they also help attract, retain and motivate staff.
Indeed, giving all our 8,500 employees one-day-off a year for a volunteering project of their choice has been a hugely appreciated initiative. At the end of the day, everything returns to the brand, and it all must support Informa’s business.
Five key areas of focus for the company are people, community, marketplace, environment and quality product. And within these, Informa is devolving responsibility to each business to focus on issues such as staff turnover, carbon footprint, volunteering and corporate giving.
To help achieve this, a CR Leader has been appointed for each of Informa’s global businesses, who work very closely with their MD or CEO to help support everyday operations and increase the strength of the brand.
The CR leaders have been thrown into the deep end and are currently motivating their divisions to increase support for the already hugely popular annual event, Green Week, which is due to take place for the second time in September. Different global games and competitions have captured the imagination of staff in countries including Australia, Dubai, Singapore, the USA and the UK. Informa is proud of their internal competitive, healthy spirit and divisions vie to be the green champion.
Informa has also introduced a number of new initiatives, such as delivering the majority of its business journals online instead of print.
The company has recently been selected for inclusion in the European Ethibel Excellence Investment register. Forum ETHIBEL reviews companies all over the world on their social, economic and environmental performance.
In 2005, the company was accredited with FTSE4Good, an accolade from the FTSE Group which shows a company embraces CR practices successfully.
