British Airways has been told it needs to improve the scope of its social and environmental reporting.
The call has come from csr network, the consultancy that verified the airline’s 2001 social and environmental report.
In an unusually critical verification statement at the back of the 52-page report, csr network says that although BA has made good progress on reporting, it needs to provide more information on suppliers, subsidiaries and overseas operations.
It says BA’s data collection systems are ‘robust’ but notes that it criticized the 2000 report for ‘lack of completeness’ – and says these concerns ‘remain’.
Although csr network praises BA for including sections in the report on ‘real issues’ such as deep vein thrombosis, it says it should develop more social performance indicators and benchmarks.
On the company’s wider policies, it concludes that BA ‘has yet to issue a documented commitment towards social and environmental issues’.
BA says it will widen the scope of future reports to include more on social issues outside the UK, on suppliers and on its impact on communities close to Gatwick and Heathrow airports.
It will also take ‘more proactive steps’ next year to introduce human rights considerations into its supplier contracts.
BA’s social responsibility manager James Farrar said that he did not expect recent job losses at BA to have a significant effect on the company’s CSR activities.
Describing csr network’s assessment as ‘fair comment’, he said: ‘We are doing some good work; we just need to be more coherent’.