Annual Report 2008 Sustainable design & engineering - Grontmij

Corporate Social Responsibility
© Bram Goots
We are working with Scottish Water to study sites affected by
European legislation to determine the link between water regimes
potentially under stress due to climate change and the need for
sustainable supplies to homes and industry, for example
abstractions from the River Tweed.
CSR and society – displaying
good citizenship
Grontmij is first and foremost a business and as such aspires to
deliver value to its customers and thereby to its shareholders.
However, displaying good citizenship is also very important to
Grontmij. We are extremely integrated in the societies in which we
operate. We serve all public and private sectors as customers and we
are large employers in many of the regions in which we operate.
We strive to create value not only for our clients but also for the
ultimate users of the schemes on which we work, as well as for our
staff and the communities in which they live and participate.
Ultimately, we can include a large part of the population in our
operating countries as stakeholders in and beneficiaries of our
activities.
In Sweden, Grontmij has been involved for a number of years in a
Mentor Project together with a range of large Swedish partners.
The project works with young people to increase their awareness
and knowledge of technical professions and business practices.
Aged between 14 and 15 years, the participants are drawn from
families who originate far from Sweden. The selected students are
part of an extensive program, including excursions to some of
Grontmij’s largest projects in Stockholm: the North Link (transportation),
Stockholm Waterfront Conference (construction),
award-winning parks (landscape architecture) and Lidingö Bridge
(construction maintenance).
CSR and business standards –
ensuring integrity
Exercising a high degree of business integrity in all aspects of how
the company goes about its business is vital to Grontmij. All our
home markets have codes of conduct in place covering aspects such
as our responsibility to society, professional and management skills,
integrity, impartiality, fairness and corruption. A new groupwide
code of conduct conforming to the guidelines in the
International Federation of Consulting Engineers (FIDIC) Business
Integrity Management System (BIMS) has been adopted. These
requirements will be rolled out in 2009 across the group as each
country adopts a code of conduct in line with the overall group code.
In relation to human rights, Grontmij Denmark was one of the first
members of Global Compact, the United Nations’ initiative to
promote human rights and the millennium goals. We hope to initiate
full membership of Global Compact for the Grontmij Group in 2009.
Through this membership we demonstrate our support for the UN’s
human rights policies. In 2009, we also intend to adopt a human
rights and equal opportunity policy for Grontmij.
The importance of attention to business integrity is stressed in our
day-to-day business. For instance during all board meetings the topic
of integrity is addressed. Likewise, integrity issues are openly
debated with new staff to underline expected behaviour.
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GRONTMIJ | ANNUAL REPORT 2008