Are we ready to meet the challenge? |
CHANGE is the only constant as we wrestle with the consequences of a financial crisis that has left us with a mountain of public debt and a barely growing economy.
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Enter the Green Dragons |
Innovative suppliers of sustainable construction encountered only friendly fire when they were subjected to the scrutiny of the Green Dragons in spring 2010.
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Crossing the water is good for business |
OLD Father Thames has been an effective commercial barrier in London for as long as the city has existed. Today that barrier is more psychological than physical, but it still hampers trade.
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Built to Achieve Conference considers the new financial landscape |
THE THIRD sector will play a vital role in helping Britain’s new coalition government to balance the nation’s books without turning its back on those who need help.
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Power to the people |
United Utilities success in delivering a sustainable procurement strategy over the past two years has resulted in clear evidence of the impact of such a programme on the people within a busy supply chain department. When the business-led Sustainable Procurement Task Force developed the Flexible Framework, the intention was to encourage organisations to develop a balanced approach to include all aspects of management necessary to deliver sustainable procurement. The objective of the “People” workstream is to ensure that people understand their responsibilities and are well equipped to deliver them. A recent company-wide staff survey bears this out: United Utilities “do” sustainability because: After working with Action Sustainability on their £3.6billion 10 year capital programme, UU were clearly being successful at sustainability on cost and reputation – this is relatively easy to spot and measure; but with talent itis harder to define the benefits and measure progress. One way is to ask your employees, every year UU runs an all-employee opinion survey (>8,500 people) and makes a donation to charity for every returned survey. Here are some all-company scores compared with Supply Chain department scores (in red and bold). 1) They asked all employees did they think the company is socially responsible in the communities where we operate – 71% favourable response, 90% in Supply Chain. 90% in Supply Chain. These scores, particularly the last one, are a clear endorsement of the power of a well managed sustainable procurement programme. The whole UU supply chain team and many others have contributed to this achievement but special praise must be given to Kirean Brocklebank, whose professionalism and enthusiasm has driven this programme forward. Action Sustainability is proud to have played a small part in helping to deliver this programme and Kieran’s kind words are a reflection on our teams input. “We are really pleased with the outcome and I wanted to thank everyone at BtoB and Action Sustainability for their work during the past year. They have all helped to make a positive difference.” |