Airbus UK is to gather the views of its stakeholders as a prelude to drawing up a corporate responsibility programme.
The UK arm of the European aircraft manufacturer will convene focus
groups and conduct interviews during the next four months with
interested parties inside and outside the company. The work is being
co-ordinated by the csrnetwork consultancy, which has worked with
Airbus UK since July 2005 to help it decide what CSR initiatives
to introduce.
Stakeholders’ views will be sought when deciding policies and projects
in eight priority areas already identified by the company – employee
relations, local environment, products, supply chain management, health
and safety, community engagement, business ethics and marketplace.
Each area will be overseen by a member of Airbus UK’s senior management
team. The company has also set up a corporate responsibility forum of
senior managers, chaired by managing director Iain Gray, that will meet
quarterly to oversee policy.
In the coming months Airbus UK will also develop a communications plan
to inform its employees about what it will be doing. Initially this
will involve 10,000 employees at its sites in Bristol and north Wales.
The company has no plans to publish a public corporate responsibility
report as yet, but says it will use the Global Reporting Initiative’s
guidelines on sustainability reporting to define key social and
environmental performance indicators.
Airbus UK is part of the Airbus company, owned by EADS, the world’s second-largest aerospace and defence company.
