Corporate responsibility consultation and programme development

These included:

• interviews with 13 senior members of Smiths management, including the Chief Executive;
• interviews with 8 customers, 11 suppliers and 4 investors;
• attendance at a Smiths graduate workshop on 'Operating Responsibly';
• a desktop benchmarking study of 31 Smiths competitors and six fellow FTSE 100 companies; and
• two workshops discussing corporate responsibility and the research findings with Smiths senior management.

The following comments are from ERM:

"In summary, the research undertaken indicates that the primary drivers for corporate responsibility within Smiths are internal and not external.

Key internal corporate responsibility drivers include the following:

• Ethical values and behaviours amongst staff are considered by Smiths senior management to be key drivers of business performance.
• Rigid adherence to legislative requirements (some of which are directly related to corporate responsibility topics) has been an important mechanism for ensuring ongoing business performance and protection of reputation.
• Corporate responsibility is important to being seen as a good employer and a workplace to be proud of, and thus to attracting and retaining staff. This is considered to be of particular importance to the new generation of workers entering the workforce."

How does Smiths compare?

"In terms of publicly available information on corporate responsibility, Smiths compares favourably to competitors and a small sample of fellow FTSE 100 companies, and demonstrates a comprehensive understanding of corporate responsibility issues. In most corporate responsibility areas Smiths is on a par with or ahead of the competitors included in this sample. However, leading companies provide more information (specifically quantitative data and indicators) on a wider range of corporate responsibility related topics. Leaders make a greater number of corporate responsibility commitments and disclose progress towards their achievement.”