Principal subsidiary undertakings
Welcome to this report explaining how GUS is tackling its Corporate Responsibilities. This is the fifth year in which we have produced a report and, following our announcement of plans to separate ARG and Experian during the next twelve months, it may well be the last under the GUS banner.
During those five years we have made enormous progress. We have streamlined and focused the business generating value as we have done so. The successful flotation of Burberry and separation of The Lewis Group during 2005 were the most recent stages in this process. The board now judges that the interests of our shareholders – and importantly the interests of our businesses and their customers – are best served by making ARG and Experian independent.
Similarly we have also made real progress in our management of Corporate Responsibility. We have successfully defined and interpreted the concept in a way that our colleagues can understand and respond to. We have focused our efforts on a relatively small number of essential responsibilities. The Group continues to be listed in all the major CR Indices, including FTSE4Good and the Dow Jones Global Sustainability Index. We have improved the energy efficiency in our buildings and increased the amount of waste we recycle, our ethical audits have gone deeper and wider into our supply chain, and we have been closely involved with social topics like financial awareness and debt management. The GUS Trust has supported exciting projects in fields as diverse as Prostate Cancer and affordable credit, projects which will leave a permanent legacy in the charitable sector after the Trust’s funding finishes.
But in my view the most significant progress and – in the light of the forthcoming de-merger perhaps the most important – is the way that both ARG and Experian have embraced CR in their own right. Both have their own policies and processes in place, both have competent managers responsible for all the significant elements and both are increasingly making CR part of their day-to-day business. Like Burberry before them, I am confident that the management teams will handle the topic professionally and well.
I hope you enjoy this Report. It think it gives a real flavour of all that our two businesses have achieved in the last five years, and how they plan to operate responsibly in the future.
