Key performance indicators on the environment are to be drawn up next year by the construction firm Balfour Beatty, which hopes to use some of them in its first group-wide environment report.
The UK-based group, which withdrew from the controversial Ilisu dam scheme in Turkey partly over environmental concerns, has formed an in-house working group to develop the performance indicators.
It carried out a preparatory environmental audit in 2000, and the Balfour Beatty Major Products division has already produced an environment report. The performance indicators are expected to be used in an environment report on all, or most, of the group’s global operations. This report will look at environmental and health and safety issues as well as ‘related matters’ such as human rights.
Balfour Beatty said environmental and social issues were behind its withdrawal from the Ilisu project, which pressure groups have claimed would displace 30,000 people.
The company concluded that ‘after thorough evaluation of the commercial, environmental and social issues it is not in the best interests of our stakeholders to pursue the project further’.
The Italian company Impregilo has also pulled out of the £1billion ($1.6bn) project.
Since it became involved in tendering on Ilisu, Balfour Beatty has put in place a risk management programme that considers the environmental, social and reputational issues relating to any project in which it is involved.
It has also created a human rights policy in consultation with Amnesty International, and a Business Principles Committee of executive directors.