The world’s third largest waste management company has introduced a triple bottom line strategy that will map out economic, environmental and social goals for its UK operations.
Sita group, which is owned by the French group Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux but employs more than 6000 staff in the UK, will base the new strategy around a five-year plan approved by the board.
The UK plan includes proposals for a ‘company council’ giving staff the opportunity to offer ideas on ways in which the business can be improved and a declaration that commits senior managers to behaving in an ethical manner. The ‘company council’ will meet for the first time next year.
Sita’s human resources director David Hespe, who is now in charge of social responsibility measures, said the group had already accepted the business case for certain measures, and had acknowledged that the group had a moral responsibility to implement them.
Sita had now decided to ‘stop debating the issue and realise that this is a fixed cost, an entry fee for playing the game,’ he added.
Sita says the five-year plan is aimed at all stakeholders, but will focus in particular on its staff. Earlier this year its parent company Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux gave all UK staff options to buy shares in the company. Hespe said that more than half of all its UK employees had taken up the offer.
The triple bottom line strategy was outlined at a special stakeholders’ seminar in London by Sita’s corporate development officer Marek Gordon.
Among those who attended were representatives of green pressure groups, customers, local authorities and bankers.
Gordon said there was a generally positive response from most stakeholders, who were told their views would be used to help Sita further develop its strategy.
‘Many of our guests at the seminar felt it was a brave undertaking to bare our soul in this way, but we consider it vital that our stakeholders have a full appreciation of our broader plans for the future,’ he said.
‘We want to demonstrate corporate responsibility in everything we do and our objectives are now exposed to scrutiny and comment from our stakeholders.’
Sita’s new stance has been backed by the waste management industry trade body, the Environmental Services Association, whose chief executive Dirk Hazell chaired the seminar.
On the environment, technical director Ralph Keeble said that all the company’s sites had been set the goal of achieving an ISO14001 environmental management accreditation by the end of 2002.
He added the company would introduce targets next year for reducing greenhouse gases.
Sita has an annual turnover in the UK of £400million (€670m). It has set a new economic target of 10 per cent growth each year through acquisitions and says that this can be reached without compromising the company’s responsibilities to the environment or society.