Corporate responsibility has informed how we have operated as a company since we first began trading as O2 almost five years ago. It challenges us to be accountable for our actions and effects wherever we do business. We aim to act responsibly and sensitively in all our dealings – locally, nationally and internationally - and to keep the needs of our customers and the concerns of our other stakeholders always in mind.
Three strategic objectives continued to direct our activities in 2005/06:
To relate our work more closely to our customers, in 2004 we devolved the management of corporate responsibility to our local operating businesses.
Our approach to corporate responsibility is coordinated by the O2 Group-wide Corporate Responsibility Forum, which meets monthly. This forum includes corporate responsibility practitioners from all the operating businesses and is chaired by Richard Poston, Corporate Affairs Director and a member of the O2 Executive Committee.
The forum has a rolling reporting agenda of key social, environmental and ethical issues, covering such issues as compliance with our Business Principles, environmental management, stakeholder management, ethical supply chain, health and safety, community investment and risk to our reputation.
The forum offers O2 practitioners the opportunity to discuss and debate issues relevant to the business before they are referred to the O2 Executive Committee and the O2 Board through the quarterly and half-yearly updates. The regular management reports also include information about progress measures against targets in the corporate responsibility field.
Every year we publicly disclose some of our key targets, actions and progress in the O2 Corporate Responsibility report. This year the report incorporates this extensive online resource and a separate printed report that discusses the key challenges we face and how we respond to them. The annual O2 plc Corporate Responsibility report is assured by Ernst & Young LLP. The Corporate Citizenship Company verifies our community investment activity.
Our social, environmental and ethical processes are also reviewed by a third party as part of the risk management and insurance programme. The latest report stated that:
“The Corporate Responsibility (CR) programme at O2 has been developing for the past 4 four years and is now considered best in class. A particular strength of the system is how it is integrated into the operating frameworks of the operating businesses. This development has significantly improved the effectiveness of the programme whilst also creating improved ownership through amalgamation with the business strategies.”
The findings of this report are shared with our risk assessors and re-insurers to inform their assessment of our Company.
