Corporate Responsibility Review
Our communities
We are passionate about contributing to the communities in which we operate and engaging our people to join together to make a difference where it counts.
Making a difference
During the year we refined our charity policy to give a greater emphasis on engaging our own employees to support their local communities.
We aim to support our people in their own communities around the world through local charitable donations, fundraising, volunteering activities and sports and social events. The network of house managers is now helping to co-ordinate and promote these activities through our offices. A few examples of activities that took place around the world follow. Fuller information is available on our website (www.atkinsglobal.com/cr).
During the year, we received the Caring Company award in Hong Kong, recognising our involvement in the local community and our commitment to being a socially responsible corporate citizen.
Following the earthquake in the Sichuan province of China, employees in Beijing provided pro bono consultancy advice for Chongzhou city to help formulate emergency relief proposals and create a strategic planning framework for reconstruction in the area following the damage caused by the earthquake. Employees from other offices in China donated approximately £10,000 to support the victims of the earthquake and employee donations were matched by the Group.
In the Middle East employees supported the sixth Clean Up UAE (United Arab Emirates) campaign launched to create public awareness on the dangers of waste left on beaches or in the water. The project, organised by the Emirates Environmental Group and held at 44 independent locations, has become a symbol of environmental action and a benchmark of cross-sector involvement in the region and resulted in more than 110 tonnes of waste being cleaned up. Employees from our Doha office also organised basketball and cricket tournaments for local schoolchildren.
Faithful+Gould staff from the Sheffield office engaged as volunteers with the Archer Project, which helps homeless men and women. Our employees supported the project once a month in the soup kitchen during lunchtime sessions by serving, cleaning and washing up.
In Newport, Wales employees gave their local communities a helping hand by revamping the Duffryn Community Link Cycle Club with a range of new fittings and fixtures to fully utilise the limited space available. The Shaftesbury Community Centre also benefited from a new workbench, flooring, whiteboards and notice boards and parts of the centre were fully painted and decorated by Atkins people.
Engaging with education
We continue to be actively engaged in a range of educational initiatives from primary schools through to universities. In Derby the Rail business ran a poster competition asking primary school children in the area to depict their thoughts on climate change and its impact on the environment with the winning posters being displayed in the Atkins office.
Our graduates are inspiring the next generation of engineers. The Engineering Awareness (EA) group, based in Bristol, organises and runs initiatives in local schools that are designed to develop youngsters’ understanding of what engineers do and inspire some to enter the profession. The EA group is involved in a number of events and activities that aim to promote and explore engineering with young people while simultaneously linking in to Key Stage 3 of the National Curriculum. Activities include visits to schools for engineering-related activities or talks, onsite work experience students or participation in schemes and events such as the Flying Start Challenge.
Through our University Liaison Directors (ULD) programme, our engagement with universities has continued to grow and develop with the objective of being regarded as an industrial partner of choice. Our ULDs have further developed their relationships with 16 universities in the UK and are developing relationships overseas with 10 in the USA, two in China, two in Singapore and one in Dubai.