The Heron Bros Corporate Responsibility Performance Report has been published on our website and outlines our overall performance for 2015.

Our Corporate Responsibility strategy consists of five key pillars, which are:

• Responsible Business;
• Resource Efficiency & the Natural Environment;
• People & Lifestyle;
• Community & Partnering
• Business through Innovation.

 

The 2015 report outlines performance across each of these five pillars.  We have seen significant improvements in some areas of the business, such as an increase in new employees joining our business in 2015.  However we have seen a slight reduction in our gender diversity statistics with a drop of 3% in female employees.   We are working proactively to increase the opportunities for females, not just in our business but the construction industry as a whole. During 2015 we participated in a number of initiatives to promote career opportunities in construction and signed up to the STEM Charter.

 

We have made significant improvements in our health and well being offering to both employees and our wider supply chain.  In 2015 we partnered with AWARE to promote the importance of mental health within our industry and participated in the AWARE Mental Health Conference.  We are also the first construction company in Northern Ireland to sign up to the Alcohol & Drug Awareness Pledge.

We invested heavily in our supply chain during 2015 and produced our Heron Bros Subcontractor Handbook, which provides guidance to subcontractors interested in working with us.  Our handbook outlines what our supply chain can expect from working with us, and also what we expect from our supply chain.  We also launched a new and improved pre-approval process on our website to enable new subcontractors to become registered with our procurement teams.

In line with our innovation strategy we also invested in new technology during 2015 to increase the level of collaboration across our project teams.  Our new Keystone Quality Control & Defect Management System has been designed to monitor, measure and report on quality, health & safety, environmental and sustainability performance across all projects.  Reporting in real time, our site teams liaise with our supply chain to ensure all issues / potential issues are identified and rectified as effectively and efficiently as possible.   Keystone has been integrated with our online knowledge system and is already delivering significant added value to our business and our clients through the delivery of defect free buildings.

We remain committed to responsible business and we were delighted to be shortlisted in the 2015 Scottish GO Excellence Public Procurement Awards.  We continue to work with our procurement teams to increase the use of sustainable and responsibly sourced products and materials.

 

We achieved the top platinum status at the 2015 ARENA Network Environmental Benchmarking Survey.  We continue to work hard to ensure we protect, and when possible enhance, the natural environment throughout all works.  We have also seen significant improvements in our approach to the Considerate Construction Scheme and we are delighted to have achieved a number of innovation credits during 2015.  Our most recent project achieved an impressive score of 46 out of 50.

 

We have identified areas of the business that require additional focus during 2016/17 to improve overall performance, which we have addressed within our strategy.  We look forward to bringing you results of our performance next year.

 

Please view our 2015 Corporate Responsibility Performance Report here.