British Land says it has stimulated greater interest in its annual CSR
report by giving stakeholders the opportunity to question its chief
executive directly.
The UK-based property company attracted more than 300 visits to the
corporate responsibility section of its website on the day the 2006
report was published, in part because stakeholders were allowed to put
points about policies and programmes, live and online, to the group’s
chief executive, Stephen Hester.
Hester made himself available for half an hour at the end of March when
the report was put on the website. He also participated in a live
online presentation of the highlights and gave his own thoughts. Among
other things, Hester was questioned on how British Land intends to
reduce energy use at its Meadowhall centre, and if it plans to make its
sponsorship of good causes ‘less confusing’.
The site area had 371 visits that day, representing 36 hours and 27
minutes of online contact with stakeholders. Of the visitors, 324 were
from the UK. Most of the rest were from the US (25) and Australia (15).
Altogether 34 people took part in Hester’s question-and-answer session,
and 165 in the live presentation. Other questions were put to Hester by
telephone or submitted earlier via email.
Claudine Blamey, British Land’s corporate responsibility executive, told EP
the company was pleased with the response. ‘It was a fresh approach
that we hope showed transparency, especially as we were prepared to
take any questions on any topic from our stakeholders,’ she said. ‘We
will certainly think about doing it again.’
Many large companies have long complained that they put great effort
into non-financial reports but that generating responses from
stakeholders is often difficult.
