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The world's third-largest water company has found a novel way of engaging with its stakeholders on social and environmental issues. Thames Water invited 120 stakeholders to submit questions on its ethical performance, with the promise that the answers would be made public.
The result is a 72-page document containing 39 questions and answers on issues such as the impact of CSR activities on profits, whether Thames will take up the SA8000 workplace standard, the effects of 'offshoring' work to India, and how the company is helping poorer people to manage to pay their bills.
Thames, which is the water division of the German conglomerate RWE, wants to maintain the momentum by using some of the topics for discussions with stakeholders this year. 'We can't call what we've done so far dialogue, but we're now thinking of running some sessions where we ask some of the people in the report to come in and ask more questions and then enter into a dialogue on them,' said Ed Mitchell, corporate responsibility director at Thames. 'The idea would be to build on the report and make this more of a consultation.'
Thames took nine months to gather and publish the questions and answers. It says it will probably produce a similar report in 2007, 'but it's a time-consuming process, and there is probably one more iteration that we can do without it becoming dull,' said Mitchell.
Questioners were personally invited to take part by the Thames chief executive Bill Alexander after the company drew up a sample of stakeholders among consumers, employees, trade unionists, community groups, regulators, local authorities, investors, non-governmental organizations and suppliers.
Participants were shown a draft of their answers before publication. In all, 90 questions were submitted and those not published in the report have been posted, with answers, on the company website.
'Some of the questions, such as the one on SA8000, have caused us to think long and hard about what we're doing, which was the point of the exercise,' said Mitchell. 'We also hope it will convey to our stakeholders that we are prepared to be open about what we do and to admit that we are not doing everything as well as we might.'
Mitchell said the exercise was fully supported by senior executives, despite the scope for sensitive questioning in a public forum. 'I felt I ought to put it to the board at an early stage and got a resounding yes, which surprised me a little,' he said. 'We didn't get any questions that were complete blind-siders, but they've certainly helped our understanding of what drives our stakeholders.'
How responsible are we? was produced in-house. Enviros, as the verifier, considered whether the stakeholders and their questions were representative and examined how the company chose which questions to put in the report.
The document is distinct from the company's annual corporate responsibility report, although there is some social and environmental data at the back.
The result is a 72-page document containing 39 questions and answers on issues such as the impact of CSR activities on profits, whether Thames will take up the SA8000 workplace standard, the effects of 'offshoring' work to India, and how the company is helping poorer people to manage to pay their bills.
Thames, which is the water division of the German conglomerate RWE, wants to maintain the momentum by using some of the topics for discussions with stakeholders this year. 'We can't call what we've done so far dialogue, but we're now thinking of running some sessions where we ask some of the people in the report to come in and ask more questions and then enter into a dialogue on them,' said Ed Mitchell, corporate responsibility director at Thames. 'The idea would be to build on the report and make this more of a consultation.'
Thames took nine months to gather and publish the questions and answers. It says it will probably produce a similar report in 2007, 'but it's a time-consuming process, and there is probably one more iteration that we can do without it becoming dull,' said Mitchell.
Questioners were personally invited to take part by the Thames chief executive Bill Alexander after the company drew up a sample of stakeholders among consumers, employees, trade unionists, community groups, regulators, local authorities, investors, non-governmental organizations and suppliers.
Participants were shown a draft of their answers before publication. In all, 90 questions were submitted and those not published in the report have been posted, with answers, on the company website.
'Some of the questions, such as the one on SA8000, have caused us to think long and hard about what we're doing, which was the point of the exercise,' said Mitchell. 'We also hope it will convey to our stakeholders that we are prepared to be open about what we do and to admit that we are not doing everything as well as we might.'
Mitchell said the exercise was fully supported by senior executives, despite the scope for sensitive questioning in a public forum. 'I felt I ought to put it to the board at an early stage and got a resounding yes, which surprised me a little,' he said. 'We didn't get any questions that were complete blind-siders, but they've certainly helped our understanding of what drives our stakeholders.'
How responsible are we? was produced in-house. Enviros, as the verifier, considered whether the stakeholders and their questions were representative and examined how the company chose which questions to put in the report.
The document is distinct from the company's annual corporate responsibility report, although there is some social and environmental data at the back.
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