British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) has begun preparatory work on a
social audit that could lead to publication of the group’s first social
report by the end of 2000.
The nuclear fuel manufacturer and
electricity generator has been holding preliminary discussions with
consultants and stakeholders about the possible scope of the audit and
the likely range of performance indicators. A company spokesperson
said: ‘we are working on a structure at the moment, but it is still
very early days’.
The move has been partly inspired by recent
research that showed BNFL was not perceived by the public to be as
socially responsible as senior company executives believe it is.
‘We need to bridge the gap in perception by producing a social report
outlining where we are, where we want to be, and what we want to do’,
said a company source.
Although BNFL has mainly concentrated
in the past on improving its environmental and health and safety
records, it has recently been stepping up its efforts on community
initiatives.
Its latest annual environment report, published
last month, says the group has decided to enter into talks with
stakeholders ‘to better inform us of the aspirations of the broader
community’.
The report, verified by Lloyd’s Register Quality
Assurance, claims the group has made considerable progress in improving
safety at its nuclear installations.
It reports that the
total recordable accident rate throughout the group fell by 40 per cent
during 1998/9 and that for the first time in the group’s history no
employee or contractor was exposed to more than 15 millisieverts of
radiation. The legal dose limit is 50mSv.
The number of
incidents registered on the International Nuclear Events Scale was 19 –
down from 25 in 1997/8 and 24 in 1996/7. Eighteen of these events were
at the lowest level, 1, with one at level 2, which is officially
classified as an incident though not regarded as serious. The highest
score on the scale is 7 for a Chernobyl-style major accident.
However, other statistics in the report show that BNFL is struggling to
reach its target of reducing solid radioactive waste from sites by 50
per cent on 1995/6 levels by the end of 2001.
BNFL employs nearly 20,000 people in 15 countries and had pretax profits of £228 million in the financial year 1998/9.
