In late 2009 Arup participated in the State of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Review run by the Australian Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility. ACCSR recently released the survey results, ranking Arup amongst the top performers with a score of 86%.
The survey addressed the impact the Global Financial Crisis has had on CSR and sought to uncover which issues Australian companies have at the top of their CSR agenda in 2010.
The report provides a comparative analysis of organisational management capabilities in areas such as stakeholder engagement, dialogue and values integration; ethical business behaviour; and social and corporate responsibility.
Highlighting the importance of CSR, ACCSR has found a positive and significant relationship between performing well in these areas, and positive business outcomes and organisational performance.
“Arup’s score reflects the firm’s ongoing commitment to delivering the core elements of its Sustainability Policy, by focusing on the sustainability of the business, its people, facilities and external relationships” says Cathy Crawley, Arup leader for sustainability in Australia. "It is rewarding to rank well in this survey as it reminds us that Arup’s commitment to sustainability is in fact an achievement, and something we should be proud of.”
Interestingly, this year’s survey uncovers that the top-rated issues have remained fairly constant, with reducing environmental impact climbing from ranking 3rd to become the most important CSR issue facing Australian companies. While working to combat business corruption remains the issue that CSR managers give least priority to in 2010.
For information on Arup's performance in the key areas of sustainability and finance, download the 2009 Corporate Report.