Going for gold
For the past three years we have benchmarked our corporate responsibility performance against leading companies in the Business in the Community (BitC) Corporate Responsibility Index.
This year we increased our score by five per cent to reach a gold rating (2008/09: silver). The index score is calculated by assessing our performance on a range of business activities including employee
engagement and development, our management of our environmental impacts, our work with communities, and our social impact across Britain.
Overall, we continue to score highly across all areas compared to the index and our sector averages. Our 2009/10 score was 6.5 per cent above the average rating for companies measured by the index.
Big Tick winner
The BitC Awards for Excellence identify and celebrate companies that have a positive impact on the community, environment, marketplace and workplace. Big Ticks are the UK’s most influential, independent, peer assessed corporate responsibility awards.
We have been re-awarded two Big Ticks in the 2010 Awards for Excellence for Talent and Active Communities.
With our gold rating in 2009/10 we outperformed the CR Index average by 6.5%.
The Big Tick for Talent award recognises the strength of our
leadership and training programmes, including our apprenticeship scheme,
which trains more than 200 young people each year in track, signalling
and electrification and plant engineering.
The Active Communities award recognises the continued work of our dedicated community safety team to reduce railway crime, save lives and keep trains running. Our work with world boxing champion Amir Khan’s Gloves community gym is well documented, but we have built on this success and formed new partnerships with other local clubs including the Heart of Portsmouth Boxing Club and St Josephs Community Centre in Cardiff. Both have given young people in these areas the chance to be involved with positive activities and helped to steer them away from the dangers of taking risks on the railway.