Corporate responsibility report.

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Building sustainable momentum.

1. Why is sustainability important to us?

The issue of sustainability sits at the heart of our converging world. It presents a valuable opportunity to help us re-invent the way brands are built because of its role in key consumer trends:
Connected and concerned consumers Consumers are more connected than ever before through a multitude of devices. Using social media technology, they constantly access content and entertainment on demand and increasingly value a brand that has a purpose and takes its corporate responsibility seriously
Interactive and ambitious brands Brands, meanwhile, are building relationships and connections with their consumers through the same digital technologies as well as setting ambitious sustainability objectives and committing to wide-ranging corporate responsibility programmes
Content and entertainment Brands use content and entertainment to forge a closer connection between consumers and their products and they increasingly use sustainability messages as content to engage and build a fan base.

As a result, Future Proof, our sustainability strategy, contributes to the success of our corporate strategy. And it helps meet the expectations of our main stakeholders:

Clients We are a trusted part of brands’ supply chains to reach their consumers. In 2011 we saw a continuation of the rapid growth in sustainable procurement and supply chain initiatives that incorporated Aegis Media or one of its brands. We responded to over 50 client requests around sustainability and corporate responsibility in 2011. Our clients expect us to meet the highest standards around corporate responsibility. We monitor our performance on sustainable supplier charters to ensure we respond effectively to client demands. We partnered with Carbon Track to deliver some of the world’s first insight into the carbon footprint of marketing campaigns for our clients. The Clownfish agency is our centre of excellence for delivering this branding and communications advice
Employees Our annual employee opinion survey, Global Check-in, incorporated 4 questions around social and environmental issues in 2011. Overall, our employees indicated that corporate responsibility and sustainability (in particular the knowledge and capacity to integrate sustainability into job functions) was a key driver of their engagement and commitment to the Group
Investors To meet the growing demand from our investors around the reporting of non-financial information relating to our Corporate Responsibility credentials and how they impact the performance of our business, we continue to disclose key information to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and the London Benchmarking Group (LBG). In addition, during 2011, we directly engaged with a number of leading Social Responsibility Investment analysis teams for feedback on our Corporate Responsibility strategy, performance and targets, and responded to requests from key Corporate Responsibility agencies, including Trucost and EIRIS. We remain a member of FTSE4Good.

2. What’s our strategy?

In 2010, we launched Future Proof, our corporate responsibility and sustainability strategy. Future Proof is about ensuring that, whilst we continue to improve our own performance as an organisation, we also act responsibly in the world around us.

The vision of Future Proof is to “create sustainable connections” through a series of global initiatives that encourage stakeholders to take locally relevant action using digital technology.

The Future Proof framework incorporates our minimum standards around corporate responsibility governance and reporting, sets a strategic direction for our Group with challenging short and long term targets, provides an innovative model to deliver on our commitments and consists of a suite of standard tools and initiatives for all our businesses.

Future Proof makes a valuable contribution to our corporate strategy through five areas of focus:

Environment In the light of rising energy costs and the scarcity of other resources, it is imperative that we sensibly and carefully manage our allocation of financial and talent resources. From a financial point of view, using sustainability to reconsider our resource consumption can lead to significant efficiencies. When we consolidated our 8 offices in London into 1 new green building in 2011, for instance, we saved significantly on energy consumption and costs due to the state-of-the-art ventilation system. In addition, we are saving 26,000 A4 pages monthly due to the introduction of the follow-me printing system and enhanced electronic filing capabilities. From a human resource point of view, employees expect a strong commitment from the Group on sustainability and our activities around enabling sustainable lifestyles through recycling and business travel enhance our ability to engage our employees
Community As brands are engaging their consumer and fan communities on sustainability, it is also essential that we invest in our local communities to learn about consumer attitudes and behaviour, maintain trust in the value of marketing as well as engage our future work force. Our global community initiative GlobalGivingTIME connects our employees with local communities through the sharing of marketing skills and knowledge. The digital nature of GlobalGivingTIME allows us to involve all stakeholders and help them to create practical change. This strengthens our network of relationships and insight into consumer attitudes and behaviour locally and globally. And these digital technologies open up huge opportunities to build scalable, replicable, and connected initiatives that empower people and spark action. We harness the power of digital for our clients to deliver change, whether it is consumer attitudes or behaviour
Market place Using their connected devices, consumers directly engage with brands through content and entertainment. As a result, it takes unique and creative solutions for a brand to stand out in a crowded marketplace. Our employees need to be able to quickly master our clients’ brands, understand the target audience and deliver innovative and exciting ways for brands and consumers to connect. Projects such as Posterscope USA’s partnership with the United Nations Foundation or Aegis Media Austria’s partnership with Lebenshilfe Wien encourage our employees to think differently about problems. Our evaluation of our worldwide community activities in 2011 showed that problem solving was the most improved skill amongst Aegis Media employees, which contributes to delivering innovative solutions for our clients
Work place Being able to attract and retain the best industry talent enhances our ability to re-invent the way brands are built. The central role of digital in any modern marketing campaign has increased the need for digitally savvy staff: only the best industry talent can deliver our corporate vision to re-invent the way brands are built. A coherent and innovative CR strategy is a key element of our recruitment and retention approach: the 2011 Global Check-in (our global employee opinion survey) clearly indicated that Future Proof (the knowledge and capacity to integrate sustainability into employees’ functions) is a key driver of employee engagement and commitment. Delivering integrated marketing campaigns in over 80 countries requires that we cultivate collaboration, integration and innovation amongst our employees. The Future Proof framework aims to bring all stakeholders, internally and externally, together to build trust to drive collaboration. Our global initiatives, such as GlobalGivingTIME, are focused on integration across brands and disciplines
Governance Our ability to engage our employees, to be credible to our clients and investors, and to involve our stakeholders in our initiatives depends on the trust in our Group. To enhance the internal and external trust of the Group it is essential to be responsible, responsive and transparent in what we do. Our extensive public reporting and disclosure, with a very honest assessment of our successes and failures, makes a substantial contribution to building trust in our business.
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“Sustainability sits at the heart of the converging media environment.” London Benchmarking Group. FTSE4Good.