2006 Corporate Responsibility (CR) Report - Atkins

WS Atkins plc Corporate Responsibility Report 2006

What it takes... Corporate responsibility

Environmental impact At Atkins we are genuinely concerned about our environmental performance. In order to help us reduce our environmental impact, you can opt to receive electronic versions of our Annual, Interim and Corporate Responsibility reports instead of printed paper. As well as the obvious ‘green’ benefits, you'll find the electronic version is far easier to search through and there are significant cost benefits to the Atkins Group. Please visit www.myatkinsshares.com where you can sign up for the service. If you subscribe, we'll donate £1 to one of our chosen charities on your behalf.

This CR Report explains how Atkins has what it takes to: 01 Live up to our strategy 02 Manage processes and make our policies work 04 Stay focused on safety and health 08 Care for the environment 14 Be an active part of the community 20 Empower our people 24 Develop excellent relationships 28 Deliver on our objectives

...to live up to our strategy Over the past year our focus has been on safety and health, our environmental impact and on our staff, all of which are of material significance to the Group. As you will see from the coming pages, we have made progress but we have much further to go. We are fortunate to have internal specialists who are industry-leading experts in developing safety and health, environmental and business management systems.

Corporate responsibility matters at Atkins. Our staff are conscious that what we do impacts on the world we live in and decisions need to be made in the light of this. However, it is only in the past three years, since we have been producing a separate Corporate Responsibility (CR) Report at the same time as our Annual Report, that we have begun to properly understand just how central it is to Atkins’ identity. So embedded are the ethics and separate elements of CR in our work and management systems, that we tend to think of it as business as normal. But normal is not enough. At Atkins we strive for excellence in everything we do – continual improvement, agenda setting, the corporate nerve to do what we think we should in an area we really understand. As a major international consultancy we have a responsibility to exert our influence wherever we do business, to give a lead and contribute positives. Ethics must play a major part in driving our financial decisions and our quest for excellence. We are working to a long timescale not a short one. And we have to live in the real world, not a perfect fantasy version. But if we set the agenda and really drive a few things, prioritising them, year on year, we can make a real and practical difference.

We believe that, wherever possible, rather than walking away from challenges, we should instead take a leadership role in raising both awareness and standards. So, for instance, our Middle East and China businesses are helping to lead the way with quality, safety and environment (QSE). In the US, where CR is less entrenched in wider business culture than in Europe, Faithful+Gould is working to establish an approach that will set a positive example. Highways and Transportation has taken significant action to lead on protecting the workforce exposed on highway maintenance, regardless of whom they work for. Corporate responsibility is not a public relations exercise. Not only is it extremely important for the wider society and also for the reputation and financial health of companies like Atkins, but the greatest value is in the pride we are able to take in our own work. Our integrity and the trust of our colleagues is at stake. We hope you value our 2006 CR Report and that it gives you a real sense of the energy, commitment and enthusiasm that goes into contributing to a better world at Atkins. Let us know what you think by e-mailing your comments to [email protected].

Keith Clarke Chief Executive


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...tomanage processes and make our policies work CR is a joint effort at Atkins. We are blending the ideas and approaches emerging from all parts of the business into a Group-wide strategy.

Our long term commitment to CR develops our staff, promotes our core values and ensures greater purpose to our activities. CR is embedded in the Balanced Scorecard which we use to monitor our overall Highways and Transportation business objectives. Neil Thomas Highways and Transportation

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Matthew Elson Management Consultants

Corporate responsibility is very much a joint effort at Atkins, embedded not only in our overarching ethical approach and day-to-day work, but in management frameworks, policies and strategies throughout the Group. On a corporate level the Group has a range of management frameworks covering different aspects of CR. The Board sets Group policies. Our Chief Executive is the Board member responsible for CR and for the Group’s performance, supported by the Group-wide frameworks. A common management structure governs safety, health and environment. A director of QSE, reporting to the Chief Executive, is responsible for Group QSE which operates at a corporate level. Each Atkins business unit also has dedicated QSE representatives to manage issues at a local level, reporting quarterly. Existing CR related Group policies include quality, safety and health, the environment, business conduct, data protection, dignity and equality at work, whistle-blowing and the appropriate use of information technology, which are published on the corporate intranet and are also provided externally on request. They are regularly reviewed and, if necessary, updated to reflect changes to legislation, emerging good practice and business needs. Risk identification and management related to CR issues are a key part of this process. It is the responsibility of business unit Managing Directors to implement these policies. Business units are encouraged to adopt additional local policies especially relevant to their own operations, as long as these also comply with Group policies. We are working steadily towards ensuring that all parts of Atkins reach international standards for quality, safety and environmental management, with the additional benefit that all aspects of our CR performance can then be easily measured and compared. Our UK businesses are also increasingly winning Investors in People status. Quarterly and annual QSE questionnaires returned by all parts of the Group ensure effective monitoring of progress. CR issues are now formally included in the annual reviews returned by all businesses.


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Corporate responsibility isn't an add-on. It's good business practice. Ivor Catto Design and Engineering Solutions

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Cross-Group debate on CR issues also plays a major part in informing our strategy and approach. In addition to local surveys and focus groups in various parts of the business, our knowledge exchange section on our intranet site, regularly hosts open discussions on the best way forward. The past months have seen lively discussion topics ranging from corporate charity donations to in-house energy efficiency measures. Over the past few years we have been looking at the full scope of CR related management frameworks already in force within the Group with the aim of drawing them together in a formal Group CR strategy linked to the wider corporate strategy. It has become increasingly obvious that the various elements of CR are so firmly embedded in every aspect of our business that we feel imposing an overarching strategy from a Group perspective, at this point, would be counterproductive. Instead we welcome the innovative approaches and ideas increasingly emerging from all parts of the Group in successive annual CR questionnaires and look forward to blending them into an organic Group CR strategy in due course. We have decided to replace our Safety Health and Environment (SHE) advisory committee with a new CR advisory committee with a widened remit, drawn from those with a particular interest across the Group, which will monitor, advise on and ultimately lead the development of a Group-wide CR strategy. We do not control the management policies and procedures of our Joint Ventures, partially owned subsidiaries and outsourced operations, or of our suppliers, nor is it as easy to insist on the same standards overseas as we do in the UK. However, we do try to make sure that they apply similar CR standards wherever possible and have policies in place or being developed in support of this aim. We have expanded the scope of this year’s CR Report to include both our overseas operations and also our subsidiary Lambert Smith Hampton, which is working towards its own CR approach.

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1 Promoting awareness in the Middle 3 Northampton CR policy East and India CR is an integral part of our partnering QSE managers from Atkins offices around contract with the Sustainable Transport the Middle East and India meet regularly Department of Northamptonshire County to discuss how to promote awareness Council (NCC) and a specific CR Policy about QSE best practices, its benefits has been developed for the partnership. and advantages and also how to achieve We will be producing a short pamphlet excellence in their own daily operations. showing how our work maps onto the Now all offices in the region are certified local sustainability objectives of the to ISO 9001:2000, they are planning the County Council, and we hosted a CR development of an integrated management stand at this year's open day to help system. The team has been boosted to educate Councillors and the public. 30 staff to tackle the challenge of delivering The policy has now been adapted for our best-practice QSE at the same time as newly secured Gloucestershire Highways responding to the rapid business growth. partnership which began in April. Tim Askew, MD Middle East & India, said “With our links with the British University in Dubai and our proactive strategy at Director level for safety on sites, we are very pleased to be leading the region on social, safety and environmental issues.” 2 Business in the Community CR Index We are delighted that we broke into the top 100 in the Business in the Community CR Index for the first time this year. This was our third year taking part and we achieved an improved score of 78% (71% in 2004, 63% in 2003) – a significant step forward and a fair reflection on where we are. But we’re still only number 93, so we’ll be looking hard at our feedback to identify areas for further improvement. The CR Index is based on a framework of four components: corporate strategy, integration, management and performance and impact. It allows companies to assess how far corporate strategy is integrated into responsible business practice throughout an organisation. It also provides a benchmark to compare management practice across the four areas of community, environment, marketplace and workplace, as well as performance in a range of environmental and social impact areas material to the business.

We are especially pleased that Atkins is the first engineering consultancy in Hong Kong to have achieved OHSAS 18001 health and safety certification, to add to our existing ISO 9001 and 14001 quality and environmental certification. Samson Sin Managing Director, Atkins China

Explanations of the Group’s corporate governance framework, including its compliance with the Combined Code and general risk management procedures, can be found in the 2006 Annual Report, which is available on our website at www.atkinsglobal.com.


03

...to stay focused on safety and health Improving our safety and health performance is always a cornerstone of our CR efforts and the way we do business. It is also essential to our success.

Safety and health management is central to our business success and to our commitment to CR. Over the past year improving our performance has, once again, been a central focus of our CR efforts. Our approach Our Board approves policies to achieve high standards of safety and health performance for our employees, contractors, clients and those affected by our activities. It approves the strategy and objectives consistent with these policies and regularly reviews overall safety and health performance to monitor its continuing suitability and effectiveness. Our Chief Executive is the Board member responsible for safety and health, setting policy for approval and reporting our performance. Each of the Group’s managing directors is responsible for the implementation of this policy and for safety and health performance in their part of the business. Our Chief Executive is supported by the QSE Director. Each of our businesses has its own QSE support relevant to the size and nature of their operations. Regular QSE forums ensure good practice is shared across the Group.

Gold award The RoSPA Order of Distinction was awarded to Asset Management, while Highways and Transportation won the Gold Award.

100,000 hours Faithful+Gould in the US was recognised by ExxonMobil for more than 100,000 man-hours of work without recordable injury at the Torrance Refinery in California.

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All our businesses must comply with our safety and health policies, in addition to managing the requirements of local legislation and safety standards and our clients’ expectations. We are committed to ensuring our safety and health principles are communicated to all our employees and that they are implemented effectively. Atkins’ safety and health policy – safety leadership For all our businesses, safety and health management requirements are driven by our global safety and health policy. We: • Apply a risk based approach to setting safety and health objectives which are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timebound, as part of our overall business strategy. • Invest in competent management by developing all our employees through training, instruction and information. • Provide workplaces, plant, equipment, materials, substances and systems of work that contribute towards a safe and healthy environment for our employees, suppliers and visitors.


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Learn from the practitioners

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Yellow Book training As long-standing contributors to the Yellow Book, the UK’s railway handbook on Engineering Safety Management, Lloyd's Register Rail and Atkins Rail are pleased to announce that we are licensed to deliver Yellow Book training. By pooling our resources we have assembled a presentation team which has decades of experience in developing, teaching and applying the Book. By choosing to buy your Yellow Book training from Atkins Lloyd's Register Training you have the opportunity to learn about the Yellow Book from some of its most experienced practitioners.

Following the release of Yellow Book 4, we have added a standalone half-day module to bring you fully up-to-date with recent developments. See our website for details of content and location.

For further information, please contact us at: Telephone:

Website:

+44 (0) 870 90 93525 ("0870 90 YELBK")

www.yellowbooktraining.com

Fax:

Email:

+44 (0) 870 90 93539 ("0870 90 YELFX")

[email protected]

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• Promote a vibrant safety culture by securing the commitment and co-operation of our employees through an effective two-way communication and participation strategy. • Audit, monitor and review the effectiveness of our policy and implement improvements where required.

1 Yellow Book training Lloyds Register Rail and our Rail business have jointly been approved by the Railway Safety and Standards Board as the alternative provider of Yellow Book training. Courses are held throughout the UK and, by arrangement, worldwide.

Our performance We planned 18 objectives for 2005/06, successfully completing 78%.

2 Area 10 road safety Our Area 10 Highways Services team in Merseyside, Cheshire, Lancashire and Greater Manchester focused on road safety over the past year. They supported Chester Hospital, the police, fire and ambulance services with their young driver training course and also held two events at Charnock Richard service station, one focusing on the importance of vehicle checks, the other on winter safety.

Our successes for the year included continuing OHSAS 18001 certification; the release of our Safe Drivers Handbook; improvements to our accident/near miss reporting system; the launch of safety, health and environment induction training via e-learning; and production of a noise e-learning module for the industry as part the 2005 European Safety Week. Business reporting Each of our businesses is required to report to the Board on a quarterly basis. Reports include Accident Incident Rate (AIR) performance, director safety tours undertaken, regulatory activity, as well as the findings from external audits and progress against our objectives such as OHSAS 18001 certification.

3 Six safety standards Our Highway Services business has introduced Six Safety Standards for staff and Supply Chain Partners as part of a major campaign to improve standards of safety and health. A DVD tool box talk covering working at height; plant, equipment and vehicles; lifting operations; underground and overhead services; site organisation; and health hazards, is being rolled out. 4 Houston Hurricane Rita When it seemed that Hurricane Rita would pass directly through Houston where we have an office with 90 people, the management team swung an emergency plan into action, which covered issues as diverse as IT back-up and collation of everyone’s emergency contact details. Fortunately the hurricane veered away but everyone learned a great deal about emergency response.

In 2005/06, a new QSE quarterly reporting system was implemented, enabling each business to input data on-line and facilitate the production of automated AIR statistics. This has significantly enhanced the quality of our quarterly reporting. Accidents and incidents We introduced a 24/7 reporting hotline, making it possible to report accidents and incidents via either the internet or the hotline. We also produced a ‘credit card size booklet’ for employees to explain the reporting system and the importance of reporting accidents and incidents. We continue to set AIR targets for our employees and contractors divided into three activities: office; engineering; and construction. This reflects the diverse risks arising from activities in these areas. AIR measures the annual number of reportable accidents per 100,000 staff.


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Safety and health continued

AIR performance during 2005/06, as set out below, was within our targets:

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Office 05/06 04/05

Target Staff Contractors

170 104 –

170 59 –

Engineering 05/06 04/05

463 151 124

463 235 767

Construction 05/06 04/05

2,100 556 293

2,100 2,763 317

Regulatory activity During 2005/06 our UK activities received no improvement or prohibition notices from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) or any local authority during their visits to our offices and sites. We received no prosecutions for any breach of safety and health laws in our global operations.

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Safety leadership within Atkins Safety and health was high on the agenda at the Atkins Group Conference in 2005, with a half day workshop for senior managers. Their feedback has been a key input to our objectives for 2006/07. 3

4 Safe driver’s handbook

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Director safety tours continue to be central in raising the profile of safety and health within the Group. Each business plans and organises their director safety tours to take account of the number of staff and contractors, the number of office and site locations, and the type of activities undertaken. The table below shows the number of director safety tours undertaken in the last two years: Director safety tours

1 Network Rail – Target 365 3 Atkins Board take the test Excellent safety and health performance The Atkins Board took and passed the has been high on the agenda in Rail (UK) CSCS card safety and health test to this year, from being one of the first major show their commitment to the scheme. companies to achieve the Network Rail target of zero major or reportable accidents 4 Safe driving for 365 days to setting up a Chinese Safety One of the highest risks identified for Assurance and Certification Centre with staff is driving. Our Safe Drivers Handbook Beijing Jiaotong University. published during the year, offers advice and guidance and outlines some ways to 2 Stop that noise – designers have reduce the risks. a key role to play The European Safety Week for 2005 focused on noise reduction. Atkins worked with Safety in Design (SiD) and the University of Manchester to produce an e-learning module which helps designers to understand their role in noise reduction. It is available to the Industry through the SiD website www.safetyindesign.org. Our Chief Executive, Keith Clarke, is SiD Chairman.

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Planned Completed % Achieved

2005/06

2004/05

273 262 96

274 263 96

Feedback from directors and employees remains positive and the tours will continue to be an integral part of senior management’s commitment to safety leadership.


Safety leadership within our industry In the UK we continue to take a more proactive role within our industry. Our Chief Executive is Chairman of Safety in Design (SiD) and we are represented on the Construction Strategic Health and Safety Forum. Over the last three years we have been working with the CiTB and fellow consultants to improve the Construction Skills Certificate Scheme (CSCS) for professional engineers. The new CSCS Professional Qualified Persons card, which draws on these efforts, is due to be launched later this year.

Safety on site Highways and Transportation’s highways services division has developed the Six Safety Standards (SSS) initiative. As part of the initiative a calendar and tool box talks have been produced to target aspects of the SSS such as the impact of noise at work.

We have held discussions with the HSE in the UK as part of their strategic plan to improve safety and health within the construction industry. In Rail we are playing an active part in the Infrastructure Safety Liaison Group (ISLG) and its comprehensive review of the method statement process.

Our Group objectives for 2006/07 include: • Achieving the new AIR targets for office (reduced by 5%), engineering (reduced by 10%) and construction (reduced by 10%). • Completing global certification to OHSAS 18001. • Continuing the roll out CSCS cards to our employees. • Raising safety awareness for young people as part of European Safety Week. • Encouraging the reporting of incidents and accidents from our contractors. • Providing safety leadership within the industry through raising awareness and standards. • Promoting behavioural safety leadership internally through director safety tours.

Setting the safety standard Our objective is for global operations to be certified to OHSAS 18001. In response, many of our businesses have amended or expanded their integrated Business Management System (BMS) to develop their safety and health management capability. These businesses included our Design and Engineering Solutions business where twelve separate systems were rationalised into a single BMS. In 2005/06 our UK Management & Project Services business, together with our operations in China and Scandinavia, achieved certification. The objective for the whole Group to be certified to OHSAS 18001 should be achieved by September 2006. Safety training Over two thousand CSCS cards have been issued to our staff in the UK, including directors and senior managers. We will continue to promote them in 2006/07 particularly following the introduction of the new Professional Qualified Persons card.

Within our Middle East business,180 site based staff were trained in construction safety to enhance their safety awareness and enable them to manage the risks at construction sites.

Our businesses have also set their own specific safety objectives. These include the introduction of the dynamic risk assessments managed through our highways and transportation control centre in Worcester; using the control centre for all site activities in our rail business; a supplier forum to raise the profile of safety and the importance of reporting accident and incidents in our asset management business; the implementation of a management system using the ‘KISS’ principles (Keep It Sweet and Simple) in Faithful+Gould’s North American operations.

All new employees are required to complete our safety, health and environment e-learning module. A reference booklet has also been produced. Many of our businesses have improved the quality of their safety training. Faithful+Gould has produced training modules for management, project and administration employees in the UK to enable them to focus on their specific needs and potential risks. Our Rail business has developed the PTS+ course to improve safety and health training for site employees, which includes manual handling, risk assessment and emergency first aid.

Certified

Best practice

WS Atkins plc is now certified to OHSAS 18001.

The Highways Agency identified our Safe Operating Systems as best practice in the industry when they carried out their first annual Safety Assessment on Highways and Transportation as one of their major suppliers.


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...to care for the environment Effective environmental management is embedded in our business management systems and much of our day to day work. We are proud of our reputation in the field.

Our approach Environmental management is integral to our CR commitment, our business management systems and much of our day to day work and we are proud of our reputation in the field. We are committed to ensuring our environmental principles are communicated to everyone in the Group and that they are implemented effectively. We manage our environmental performance in the same way as we manage safety, health and quality, through dedicated QSE staff. Our Chief Executive is responsible for environmental issues at the Board including setting our policies for approval and presenting regular reports on our performance. Atkins’ environmental policy – respect for the environment For all our businesses, environmental management requirements are driven by our Group environmental policy. We: • Take environmental impact into account in the planning, design and implementation of our contracts to help prevent pollution, minimise our impacts on local communities and ensure that activities with high environmental risks are controlled effectively. • Ensure compliance with all relevant environmental legislation and, where practical, with codes of practice, industrial standards and other requirements, such as those specified by our customers. • Incorporate environmental and sustainability considerations into our design standards and practices with regard to the procurement and use of materials, energy consumption, waste disposal and recycling. • Provide appropriate environmental training for our own staff, and are working to promote environmental awareness amongst our suppliers, contractors and partners. Our performance During the year a range of initiatives raised awareness, improved data and provided tools and resources to enable our employees to manage environmental impact. These included: • Implementation of SHE induction training for our employees through an online e-learning package. • Environmental reporting in our online accident reporting system.

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• Subscription to the Corporate Responsibility Exchange (CRE) to enhance our performance monitoring. • Production and distribution of our ‘What If?’ emergency response guide for site activities. • Implementation of a programme for assessing workplace environmental management. • A new online tool and tracking system for managing environmental impacts in the office. • The translation of key SHE resources into local languages for our non-UK based operations. • Switching to a ‘Green Tariff’ for electricity for all our UK business operations.

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80% recycled We have decided that from now on all corporate literature will be printed on 9Lives90. It has 80% recycled content and is used by a number of leading environmental organisations.

Certified WS Atkins plc is now certified to ISO 14001.

Environmental incidents No significant incidents were reported during the period. We are working to improve our environmental reporting and committing resource to heighten awareness, particularly on site operations where the risk of impact is greater.

1 Highest BREEAM rating The highest BREEAM rating ever attained – 79.7% – either for new-build or refurbished office premises in the UK, has been awarded for the environmentally sustainable refurbishment by Atkins’ design solutions team of Defra’s (Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) flagship nine-storey Nobel House, Westminster. 2 Drive for higher standards A strong supporter of the Environmental Industries Commission (EIC) – leading lobbyists for the UK’s environmental products and services industry – Atkins has joined the commission’s recently created Aldersgate Group, formed to spearhead its drive for higher environmental standards within the context of better regulation and to counter the case for deregulation of green issues. 3 Heat mat and sedum roof Our work on Solihull Centre for Inclusive Learning has set the benchmark for sustainable construction in schools being rebuilt under the government’s BSF (Building Schools for the Future) programme. It not only has the UK’s largest ground source heat mat, but the biggest sedum roof in Britain and a remote building management system controlling the building environment.

Regulatory activity During 2005/06 we received no cautions, warnings or prohibition notices from enforcement authorities related to environmental incidents. We were not prosecuted for any breach of environment law across our global operations. Environmental benchmarking We are committed to improving the standard of environmental performance across our business and take advantage of opportunities to undertake relevant competitor analysis and benchmarking. For example, we continue to participate in the Business in the Environment’s (BiE) Index of Corporate Environmental Engagement. Our Performance in the 2005 survey ranked us as a top 100 performer with a final score of 80% (2004: 74%).


09

Environment continued

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We are still working on really accurate assessment of our performance and improvement in these areas, because of the complexity of our estate. During 2005/06 we operated from over 200 locations globally. These ranged from large established offices of several hundred employees in city centres, to temporary site depots in remote areas accommodating only a small number of people. A continuing trend to move into larger, more efficient office space has also meant an increase in co-occupation with other organisations, which in turn means the added complication that we need to calculate our ‘share’ of environmental impact in these locations. Nevertheless we increased the scope of measurement during the year particularly for energy use and are targeting further improvements for 2006/07.

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Energy During 2005/06, we measured energy consumption at all our UK properties where we paid the utility bill. Where we leased office space in co-located buildings, energy data was not always available. However this data set covered more than seventy properties and over 50% of the total office space we occupy in the UK. 1 Dark skies winner Our Warrington street lighting team has won the British Astronomical Association’s ‘Campaign for Dark Skies’ Award for the lighting design on the UK M6 Toll motorway.

2 Ship clean up Our oil and gas team has been helping BP Marine clean up ships’ exhaust gas emissions and save fuel costs by using novel ‘scrubbing’ technology. The exhaust gas samples gathered during tests have showed that performance was well in excess of anyone’s expectations.

Performance in our operations We recognise our business operations have a significant enviromental impact. We have identified the key direct environmental impacts as CO2 emissions arising from office accommodation and business travel, and non-hazardous waste. Reporting of data is still evolving as standard CO2 conversion factors are revised and our own data capture systems improve. Estimates are as follows: Per employee

CO2 emissions Solid non-hazardous waste Paper recycled

2005/06

2004/05

2,708kg 82kg 29kg

2,716kg 85kg 27kg

Further details are shown in Table 1 on page 13. Indirect impacts from business activities also occur in the form of ‘upstream’ impacts, notably through the use of sub-consultants and other suppliers, and ‘downstream’ impacts via our clients’ use of the capital infrastructure we plan, design and enable. The Group regards measurement of these impacts as impractical at present.

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In 2005 we negotiated a green tariff for electricity within the UK. The energy supplied under this contract comes from Climate Change Levy (CCL) exempt generation sources. For every kWh of electricity consumed by us, our energy provider must purchase the equivalent amount of electricity from CCL exempt sources. Because the energy supplied under this contract still cannot strictly be used to claim carbon emission reductions we are working with our energy providers to look for ways to further reduce our carbon impact. Initiatives We believe better use of energy in our operations and heightened awareness amongst staff will also have positive effects on our carbon impact. Our energy efficiency engineers have surveyed energy use in some of our largest UK offices, to evaluate performance and develop a campaign to target energy awareness. Energy use at each site was assessed and the scope for any savings, including payback times, will be calculated as part of the reporting process. It is hoped that this will identify areas for improvement. Water Water consumption was measured for 32% of our UK office space in 2005/06. Based on these measurements, UK water consumption was 10.53 cubic metres per employee (2004/05: 10.86 cubic metres). Further details are shown in Table 1 on page 13. We therefore remain within the current guidelines of the Building Research Establishment for water consumption, but will continue to assess ways to improve our performance.


Waste and recycling We are committed to reducing waste and improving recycling in our operations and services and plan an awareness raising campaign through 2006/07. Although our current figures of 82kg of solid waste per person (2004/05: 85kg) and 29kg of recycled paper (2004/05: 27kg) are within recognised benchmarks for UK commercial premises, with 14,907 staff operating in a large number of locations worldwide, there are significant further opportunities for us to reduce waste and recycle. Information technology Over 10,000 employees use our information systems in the UK alone and we recognise the significant environmental impact of the technology we use. We assess new systems for functionality and performance and redundant equipment goes to a secure processing chain for re-use, recycling or eventual disposal. A specialist supplier ensures equipment is safety checked and tested, before being offered for resale in the second hand market. Where redundant equipment is not suitable for resale, usable components are removed and passed on to the second hand repair market. Remaining unusable components are put into an established disposal chain to recover useful materials and segregate any hazardous waste for special treatment, like cathode ray tubes (CRT). During the year we completed the replacement of CRT monitors in the UK with significantly more energy efficient flat screens. We will continue to assess emerging technologies in the information technology market for any environmental opportunities. Business travel As part of Atkins’ commitment to improving our environmental performance, the Group company car scheme is being amended to encourage the selection of cars with low CO2 emissions. The new scheme will increase an individual’s allowance by £1 per month for every 1g/km by which CO2 emissions fall below 160g/km. This can be used to reduce the level of personal allowance they may otherwise have paid for extras above the band limit; or order a higher specification car using this credit. In addition, mileage rates will be adjusted progressively to promote use of low emission cars, with rates being capped at those applicable to a 2 litre car. This is aimed at discouraging the use of larger engine cars, and we anticipate making further changes in the future.

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1 Energy efficiency and renewables Atkins has long played a leading role in the energy efficiency and renewable energy market. Our work ranges from an ongoing relationship with the Carbon Trust, through teaching children in Oxfordshire schools as part of the Atkins Schools Education Project, to looking at wind power for Northumbrian Water and the Royal Mail and working with Ocean Power Delivery of Edinburgh on the world’s first commercial offshore wave farm.

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2 Check that air quality In Scandinavia our work on ‘OzoneWeb’ for the European Environmental Agency will allow European citizens to check their local air quality. Currently a prototype, it uses Geographical Information System technology and online ozone measurements across Europe to show ‘real time’ air quality.

Other incentives to reduce reliance on car use for business travel have also been introduced: • Local travel plans have already been introduced at many of our offices. These will be reviewed to ensure that they provide the right mix of incentives to encourage environmentally friendly travel. All offices with 50 staff or more will be required to consider the implementation of a local travel plan. • Staff are now able to take advantage of interest free loans for rail season tickets. • A number of car sharing schemes are already in operation. Those participating will continue to benefit from priority when allocating car parking spaces at our offices. Linked to this, we will maintain our commitment to a guaranteed ride home in the event that a car sharing partner has to leave the office. • Cycling (and walking) facilities will be improved at the larger offices where possible, whilst this is not viable for all staff, we want to encourage this mode of transport. In addition, we have also launched a new voluntary benefit to promote pedal power. • As pool vehicles come up for renewal, we will be replacing these by more environmentally friendly models. For example, all pool cars at our Epsom office have already been replaced with Petrol/Electric hybrids. • Facilities for video conferencing have been improved at many of our offices. With voice conferencing, staff should be able to minimise travel to other offices in the UK and overseas. We will continue to promote these services and to invest in the latest technology to ensure that they work effectively for our staff.


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Environment continued

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We hope that these measures will lead to further reductions in the emission rating of our company car fleet which fell to 164.5g/km (2005: 171.4g/km), thereby continuing to remain within the lower vehicle ratings band (151-165g/km Band D) as defined by the UK government. UK company car fleet

Total fleet (No. of vehicles) Average CO2 emission rating (g/km) 2

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2005/06

2004/05*

1,517 164.5

1,716 171.4

*2004/06 average CO2 emission rating (g/km) restated

Further data regarding business travel is shown in Table 1 on page 13.

1 Green Emirates founder member 3 Trees, trees and more trees Atkins is a founder member of the We’re involved in a number of Emirates Green Building Council, schemes to offset our carbon emissions. the first of its kind in the Middle East, With the Woodland Trust, Highways promoting high performance and Transportation in the north of environmentally friendly construction. England calculated annual emissions Initial approval for the council has been from journeys to and from work then given by Dubai’s Department of Economic planted 650 trees – about an acre of Development following government new woodland and we’re also supporting commitment to reducing carbon the Trust’s major replanting scheme to emissions. Emirates GBC is expected to commemorate the bicentenary of the join the World Green Building Council. battle of Trafalgar. 2 Car washing worries Water and Environment has been examining the potential effects on the aquatic environment from washing large numbers of cars in office, supermarket or local authority car parks. Their report was widely publicised and highlighted the fact that car parks do not have the water treatment facilities that professional car wash sites have by law, with the result that commercial detergents find their way untreated into the water system, including local rivers and streams.

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Purchasing and resources We continue to monitor the impact of our purchasing and resourcing and to assess areas for improvement. During the year we assessed UK office consumables and increased the scope of ‘environmental products’ negotiated with our preferred office suppliers. For example, of the 101,416 reams of paper purchased in 2005/06, 43,024 were produced from recycled stock – 43% of total paper use, or 215 tonnes. This compares to 14 tonnes in 2004/05. Conscious that our purchasing decisions can also carry indirect social impacts in relation to issues including human rights and fair and equitable trading, we promote the use of Fairtrade products in our offices by ensuring they are offered by our preferred suppliers. Biodiversity Biodiversity is an important element of our environmental services and design work. We also consider the protection and enhancement of ecology as part of managing our estate. Setting the environmental standard Our objective is for all our operations to be certified to the international standard for Environmental Management Systems; ISO 14001. During 2005/06 our operations in the Republic of Ireland, Sharjah and China, together with our management consultancy business in the UK, achieved this standard. A number of existing business certifications were also extended to cover a wider range of locations and services. Certification to ISO 14001 was also achieved for WS Atkins plc, covering our business support activities including QSE, human resources, supply management, Group information services and our Shared Services Facility. We anticipate that global certification will be achieved by September 2006.


Performance in our services Design and consultancy We consider environmental impacts as an integral part of delivering solutions to clients. We recognise this is of particular significance where our design may influence social, economic and environmental balance. We apply an assessment to the design life-cycle of our projects, with the aim of determining both risks and opportunities. Site activities Pollution control is integral to our activities as a service provider and maintainer of business premises. For design, construction and operational activities we are committed to managing, reducing or eliminating associated environmental impacts. For business support activities, such as travel, we strive to reduce environmental impacts where practicable. In 2005/06, some of our key projects were carbonfree in relation to business travel. We aim to increase the projects using this initiative to tackle climate change.

Our objectives for 2006/07 include: • Achieving ISO 14001 certification for all our operations. • Increasing levels of environmental awareness. • Improving our reporting system for environmental incidents. • Strengthening our capability in sustainable design and engineering services. • Improving our environmental performance for operations, for example our energy consumption. • Implementing and tracking a ‘Green Policy’ on company cars. • Rolling out environmental leadership courses across our business.

Table 1: UK Environmental Performance Data 2005/06

Totals

Emission equivalent per employee (kg CO2) 2005/06 2004/05

CO2 equivalent (tonnes) 2005/06 2004/05

2005/06

2004/05

Energy consumption Electricity Gas

17.2m kWh 11.8m kWh

18.1m kWh 14.5m kWh

7,410 2,247

9,402 2,749

701 213

890 260

Subtotal

29.0m kWh

32.5m kWh

9,657

12,150

914

1,150

84.1m km 30.1m km 18.3m km

80.6 m km 17.6 m km 10.6 m km

14,650 3,565 733

14,042 2,105 467

1,387 337 69

1,330 199 36

132.5m km

108.8m km

18,948

16,614

1,794

1,565

28,605

28,764

2,708

2,716

n/a

n/a

10.53m3

n/a n/a

n/a n/a

Business travel Road Air Rail Subtotal Total GHG (CO2) emissions Water consumption Waste management Solid waste Recycled paper

111,221m3

156,363m3

82kg 29kg

Verifiable data 2005/06 2004/05

59% 43%

54% 42%

92% 92% 92%

90% 90% 90%

10.9m3

32%

32%

85kg 27kg

41% 65%

29% 38%

Notes: • Data per employee is based on the full time equivalent average number of own staff (excluding agency staff). Data disclosed in the 2005 Corporate Social Responsibility Report was on a headcount basis and has therefore been restated. • 2004/05 business mileage totals restated due to accounting variances and recalculation using revised DEFRA conversion factors (July 2005). • 2005/06 carbon emission data suggests increase in associated travel impacts, balanced by performance improvements in energy usage.


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...to be an active part of the community These pages highlight just a few of the many community focused events, initiatives and projects we have been involved in over the past year.

Atkins people take enormous pride and pleasure in being an active part of – and making a positive contribution to – the communities where they work. This individual and collective sense of responsibility, involvement and commitment is at work throughout the Group: • Many projects that have significant social, ethical and environmental impacts. • Businesses formally involved in community charitable, educational and environmental initiatives and with specific local policies and procedures to manage their impact on and involvement with the community. • Staff involved in numerous voluntary community and fundraising activities. We see the Group’s role very much as an enabler – to encourage and make it possible for our businesses and staff to take an active role in the community on an ongoing basis, supporting individuals with additional paid leave, sabbaticals, flexible working and sponsorship. For instance, Rail’s initiative, in line with its stated CR objectives, to actively pursue opportunities to raise Atkins’ profile within the community and enable employee participation as part of an improved work life balance. We have introduced greater clarity around leave that employees may be able to take to carry out work with charities.

Community involvement gives Lambert Smith Hampton recognition as a responsible business that cares about the communities in which we operate and also creates a sense of pride and satisfaction amongst our employees. Mark Rigby Lambert Smith Hampton

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This year, too, for the first time we have decided that from now on the Group will focus on three charities each year, of which at least one will be related to our professional work and one other to a specific good cause. Every year significant sums are given to a range of causes by the Group, our businesses and our staff. Employees and Group businesses who prefer to organise local events for other charities or good causes are still free to do so, but we hope that by focusing our efforts on a smaller number of charities, we can make a real difference. We will make a significant corporate donation to each charity, and we are also encouraging payroll giving and local fund raising.


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By actively engaging with its community, Asset Management aligns itself positively with local issues and directly, or indirectly impacts on the local economy. Sean Hayley Asset Management

We are also donating £1 to our chosen charities for each shareholder who opts to receive shareholder communications electronically. Shareholders can sign up now at www.myatkinsshares.com Our three charities for the coming year are: • RedR – Register of Engineers for Disaster Relief. • WaterAid. • Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP) Association. It is not possible in these few pages to highlight more than a fraction of the community focused events, initiatives and projects we have been involved with over the past year, but we hope the selected case studies and quotes demonstrate how important being part of the community is for people at Atkins. As Highways and Transportation put it when asked to summarise what involvement with the community means to them: Increasingly, given the very local nature of many of our contracts, particularly for local authorities, we would, quite rightly, not be considered for the work without this involvement. We aim to become part of the community: • We support our clients to achieve their social responsibilities through their strategic goals and make sure local people understand our role in their communities. • That in turn means local people/students are more likely to seek a career in Atkins and we are also often able to employ local people and contractors to provide local services. For instance in Northamptonshire Nordis, who provide signs for us, has a staff of 34 of whom 30 are disabled. • We increase our understanding of requirements and expectations through interaction and knowledge sharing. • We improve staff morale because they can see they work for an ethical company. • Overall we become much more committed, and raise our game.

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1 Fair wage for cleaners 2 Support for homeless youngsters As a part of Asset Management’s work for Railway Children, which supports Barclays we manage a number of service homeless youngsters, is the nominated delivery contracts, including the cleaning charity supported by Atkins Rail for 2005. contracts across the bank’s retail estate. One event by the Derby team involved We recently re-procured a fair wage a staff fast. Senior Mechanical Engineer package for the 2,400 cleaners across Bob Harris, colleague in Derby said: the UK who previously existed on the “Far too many young people find national minimum wage. It will increase themselves homeless, ending up on the minimum pay threshold, pension railway property. This charity does a contributions, sick pay, holidays and wonderful job and we’re keen to help training. Aligned with the wider social in any way we can.” justice campaign being championed by MPs and other Groups aiming to raise 3 Calming music workforce standards and skills levels, it’s a Classical music has proved so successful three way win for our stakeholders (client, in helping tackle youth disorder on the suppliers and employees) and makes a real east end of the District line, the system difference in the low-wage community. is set to be introduced by Metronet, in which Atkins has a 20% stake, at 35 other Tube stations. 18 months ago, CD players were wired in to PA speakers at Elm Park, Hornchurch, Dagenham Heathway and Dagenham East stations. Since then, physical and verbal abuse has fallen by 3%.


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Community

Safe water Atkins has been working in Kyrgyzstan to help improve hygiene and sanitation within rural communities. The aim was to enhance health benefits by combining hygiene and sanitation with access to safe water for people in 200 villages. The training and promotion of hygiene had a significant impact on the hygiene behaviour of villagers and the health of the children. The relative risk of children contracting Giardiasis (a parasitic disease) fell by 50%.

London Marathon

continued Every year a cohort of our people take part in the London Marathon. This year we know there were at least 23, raising thousands of pounds for a variety of charities between them. Then they, their family and friends repaired to a nearby pub ‘borrowed’ for the day to celebrate the achievement of finishing this major event.

3,000 feet Water teams from across the UK took part in the recent WaterAid Munro Challenge, which raises money by having teams of people on top of every Munro at the same time. This was the first time that all mountains over 3,000 feet (Munros) in Scotland, England, Wales and the Republic of Ireland had been climbed on the same day, making the event a world record. Atkins people from Swansea, Belfast, Dublin, Fife, Warrington, Epsom and two teams from our Glasgow office took part.

£25,000 As part of its yearly charitable activity, Asset Management (AM) is conducting a challenge to attempt both the Yorkshire 3 Peaks (12 Hour Challenge) and National 3 Peaks (24 Hour Challenge), which will involve Asset Management staff, clients and AM’s client Cancer Research staff. The challenge hopes to raise over £25,000 for cancer research.

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Regeneration Since winning the ‘Streatham From Drive thru to Destination’ project, we have been committed to the long term regeneration of the area. For instance we provide support for the week long Streatham Festival of music, film, visual art, poetry and comedy. Organised by the community for the community and celebrating local talent, the festival is building a positive profile for Streatham, and contributes to the local economy.

£5,000 We were the sponsor of a major Combined Services (Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force) sporting event, the annual Combined Services versus Barbarians Remembrance Day Rugby Match, which raises money for the Royal British Legion. We raised £5,000.

£3,728

Fit for life

We are proud to be a patron of RedR – and the strength of our support for its work was clearly demonstrated when hundreds of us wore something red to work to help raise funds for the charity. The efforts in our offices brought in the second best total for the UK-wide Wear Red campaign – a cheque for £3,728.

Transport planners Gregg Holland, Robert Sangster and Sam Fradd were among some 40 cyclists who cycled from Redhill to Paris to raise funds for the YMCA’s Fit for Life project. This charity supported fitness programme helps people with disability and serious ill health to benefit from exercise and leisure activities.

Atkins Rail staff take enormous pride from supporting and leading community events – a sense of belonging in and giving something back to the community. For those who wish to become involved, the support of Atkins can be the enabler they seek. Richard Hulland Rail


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Community

Local charities

continued

Children’s services

Faithful+Gould UK has given more than 100 hours of professional advice to help the Association of Community Rail Partnership’s Central Stations Project which aims to make redundant station buildings available for use by local charitable organisations. They carried out building assessments on 12 stations which Central Trains has identified as surplus and which it is prepared to lease to community Groups at a peppercorn rent. Faithful+Gould has now been invited to take part in a national campaign launch at the Palace of Westminster.

Management Consultants are working with the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) on the widely publicised Information Sharing Index to support the work of children’s services in all areas of England by the end of 2008.

£1,286 For the second year running, 16 ‘Atkins Angels’, from our Shared Services Facility (SSF), joined in The Race for Life – the UK's biggest women-only fundraising event for Cancer Research. Held each July, some 162 races take place across the country. They raised £1,286 for the charity.

Orphanage Faithful+Gould US Phoenix office staff, who were involved in hotel refurbishment projects, travelled to Mexico to help install air conditioning in orphanages in the Sonoran desert. The equipment was re-claimed from hotel refurbishment projects, a good example of recycling with a positive benefit for deprived children. Faithful+Gould (US) has a policy of reimbursing staff involved in community or charity work for their travel and food expenses.

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One of the most significant results of community involvement for Faithful+Gould in the UK is the individual development and personal sense of achievement experienced by our staff. For many these are the first opportunities they have had to contribute to society in a practical way.

Tsunami Water and wastewater engineer Kay Nagendra returned to her homeland, Sri Lanka, to help UNICEF with the post-tsunami rebuild. Trincomalee, on the eastern coast, was one of the worst affected areas in Sri Lanka. UNICEF was designated the leading UN agency supporting the coordination and overseeing the implementation of water and sanitation projects.

Alan Stinton Faithful+Gould

£6,414 Our Design Solutions’ charity team in Scotland has organised events at least once a month over the year and raised £6,414 for Yorkhill Children’s Foundation which provides specialist care and treatment for sick children throughout Scotland.

Training

Sanitation

We have recruited 20 new staff in Port Talbot under the Workways scheme – a partnership between Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council, Jobcentre Plus and Neath Port Talbot Council for Voluntary Service, supported by the European Social Fund Objective 1. It aims to help those furthest away from the labour market into sustainable employment. Mentoring support overcomes barriers to work, then local employers and trainers provide the skills and experience needed.

Atkins Water Director, Mike Woolgar, worked with Partners for Water and Sanitation (PAWS) to help develop the water sector in small towns and peri-urban areas in Benue State, Nigeria. PAWS is a not-for-profit organisation which uses support from UK water professionals to help bring water and sanitation to unserved areas. Ashley Roe, Chairman of PAWS, said “This is probably one of the best examples we have of partnership working. We are really grateful for the support that Mike Woolgar and Atkins have given.”


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...to empower our people The skill, energy and commitment of our staff make the Group what it is.We make continual improvements to our working environment to attract and retain them.

The skill, energy and commitment of our staff make the Group what it is. For that reason we aim to be the employer of choice in our sectors and we make continual improvements to our working environment to attract and retain staff. We were delighted that Atkins was once again judged to be one of the UK’s best big companies to work for in the 2006 Sunday Times 20 Best Big Companies to Work For survey. Our business Atkins is the leading firm of engineering consultants in the UK and Europe and the fourth largest design firm in the world. We are one of the largest employers of professional engineers, project managers and specialist disciplines. Each of our businesses, supported by their HR teams, is responsible for HR issues locally, supported by our Group Human Resources Director who is responsible to our Chief Executive for employee issues across the Group.

Faithful+Gould is QS News Awards’, QS Employer of the Year.

Recruitment and retention We have continued to increase the resources allocated to recruitment, with over 40 specialist staff dedicated to this activity. Our recruitment platform now covers the USA and Middle East and will be extended to India and China this year.

Diversity

Global staff numbers have risen steadily. Our own staff increased by approximately 650 during the year, with total headcount (including agency staff) up by over 1,000. We have undertaken a number of highly successful recruitment campaigns in India, Poland and Australasia and will continue to extend our recruitment coverage as necessary.

Employer of the Year

Highways and Transportation is taking part in a Transport for London initiative called Equality through Diversity, where TfL is looking to encourage its suppliers to drive diversity through it’s own supply chain.

Best Big Companies

The Group is now the largest UK employer of technical staff and the fourth largest employer of civil and structural staff in the world, with 14,907 employees, including agency staff, as at 31 March 2006. Of these, 11,674 were based in the UK, 840 in the Far East, 1,148 in the Middle East, 688 in continental Europe and 557 in the USA. A major recruiter of graduates, the majority of our staff are professionally or technically qualified.

We are delighted to have been placed 11th in the Sunday Times 20 Best Big Companies to work for survey.

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1

2

Our intake of graduate trainees continues to rise. We were particularly pleased to be the fastest riser in the list of Times Top 100 Graduate Employers, rising from 94th to 66th during the year. We now visit 35 Universities during the annual recruitment exercise, attending in excess of 50 events, and process applications from over 8,000 undergraduates. Staff turnover fell in the year to 14.1% (2005: 15%), with a marked improvement in our design disciplines. Turnover is broadly comparable in the UK and overseas businesses. We aim to continue to improve in what will remain a competitive market for high quality staff. Turnover for those participating in management development programmes is particularly low, providing an early return on investment and has improved significantly for those on graduate training schemes as a result of improved development programmes and long term retention schemes. To reduce staff turnover further, we used an external supplier to survey employees who resigned from Atkins within the last 18 months, to help us to understand better why our employees leave, and so help us to determine what we needto do to encourage employees to remain with the Group. Our e-recruitment investment has significantly increased our capacity to recruit, bringing cost and efficiency benefits, with the number applying online now over 40%. Greater emphasis has been placed on encouraging talent mobility across the Group, an internal publication ‘Atkins Careers’ has been launched to reinforce this philosophy. Induction Over the last year, we have focused on the way we introduce our new staff to the Group. We have developed a new induction process which aims to improve consistency across our businesses and, more importantly, to improve retention by making it easier and more enjoyable to work with us in the first days. The new process begins on the day the new person accepts a job offer with us and continues to their first review after three months. Local inductions are followed by a newly devised one-day Group Welcome event.

3

1 Diasporan 3 University links Faithful+Gould provides ongoing unpaid We have close links with numerous support, including professional advice, universities throughout the UK and further funding application and negotiation afield – around 40 currently and the list consultancy, to the West Indian Standing keeps growing. For instance, we now Conference 'Diasporan', a social enterprise sponsor chairs in the British University in project looking to create a home to Dubai’s Institute of the Built Environment showcase and promote the wide diversity and in Civil Engineering at Greenwich; of cultures within London and to provide Lambert Smith Hampton sponsors an MSc work opportunities and social structure in Real Estate at Oxford Brookes; at Surrey for many young people. The Chairman, we sponsor a masters course in Transport Clarence Thompson said, “I commend Planning and support the Multi-Discipline the Executive of Faithful+Gould for its Design Project (MDDP) element of the four commitment to equal opportunities. It has year M.Eng course; we support the new demonstrated that 'equality' truly means MBA focused on innovation at Imperial equal and fair treatment regardless of race, College; we work closely with Cranfield colour, class, creed, sexuality or disability." and Warwick on Atkins in-house management development programmes. 2 Wise women We also lecture, support students and We have formed Atkins WISE which is take part in collaborative projects. driven by women in science, engineering and technology. We have held a number of forums for women to discuss their experiences at Atkins and to understand what they perceived to be the barriers to their success and were gold sponsors for the recent UKRC Annual Conference on Gender and Leadership. We have also begun a project called Setting us APART (Atkins Partnering and Reaching Talent), working with local schools, colleges and Universities to deliver a programme that meets curriculum requirements and will raise the focus and understanding of SET occupations to children at key stages of their academic lives. The project aims to combine and coordinate the work that we currently undertake with schools, colleges and Universities such as reading programmes, interview techniques, mock interviews, and CV surgeries.


21

People continued

1

1 Win People, Win Planet, Win Profit 2 A burning mission Our Exeter office is planning to be an Lambert Smith Hampton has a ‘mission to Atkins pilot site for the new Investors in be a great place to work’, and has People Healthy Organisation Model. introduced a range of improved benefits Lessons learnt are already being fed into during 2005, including: other offices in Design Solutions and to • A suite of courses for promotion (including Group HR. First step is Work-Life Balance Mini MBA, PACE Pipeline, Managing Key accreditation, followed by the Leadership Clients, Leading and Managing Others) – Model, followed by the Healthy which has encouraged both fee-earners Organisation Model. A major plank of and senior support staff to come forward Exeter’s approach is the introduction of for promotion and has made the whole flexible working and home working which process transparent. have now been taken up by 24% of their • Enhanced maternity arrangements and staff and have already achieved a 5% paternity pay. reduction in CO2 per mile (with further • A stress management course called reductions to come). The benefits of home ‘Breathing Space’ which focuses on simple working on the 'triple bottom line' are, as ways to stimulate health and creativity, they put it, ‘Win people, win planet, win understanding the body’s systems and profit.’ (but only two days a week so energy flows, how to change personal people don’t become miserable and behaviour in the workplace, simple isolated). Exeter is setting out its exercises and meditations to alleviate commitment in its business plans, stress, and improving concentration, and backing this up with a strategy for sharpness of focus and clarity of thought. increasing awareness.

2

Training and development Investment in training and development increased in 2005/06 to £14.5m. This trend is expected to continue for the foreseeable future. A major review of our management training portfolio was largely completed during the year with twenty two new training programmes launched.

Reward We review our remuneration policies on an ongoing basis to ensure we continue to be able to recruit, retain and motivate staff. We have introduced new disciplines around the use of notional pay ranges together with better access to market data and guidance to ensure our salaries are competitive.

Over 1,850 staff have now attended our core people, commercial, client and technical programmes. Attendees included managers from all major businesses and territories and are now being run on an international basis, with the first programmes held in the Middle East during February.

We recently commissioned external advisors to review our variable pay practice, specifically the long term incentive plan and annual bonus arrangements for our senior employees. The purpose was to ensure we have appropriate motivational and reward mechanisms aligned to our evolving business needs. Proposals coming out of this exercise will be implemented through 2006/07.

The number of managers attending our highly successful Management Development Centres increased to around 200 in 2005/06. We have also continued to build management development links with academic institutions in the UK and overseas. Our Senior Management Development Programme continues to prove very successful in broadening the skills and mindset of the next generation of top managers. We are using this as a catalyst for driving change across the Group. During the year 138 graduates attended our Graduate Development centres. These utilise many of the assessment tools developed for our Management Development Centres. Feedback from participants has been very encouraging and we expect these centres to prove successful in supporting their career development planning. We have been pleased by the progress we have made, and training and development will continue to be a high priority for the Group, not least as we grow further internationally.

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We have made improvements with our reward communications and last year published a set of total remuneration statements for our most senior staff. The objective has been to re-enforce the value of the financial package through working at Atkins. We have also introduced a range of voluntary benefits over the last 18 months: Childcare Vouchers, a Share Incentive Plan and an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP). All of these have been well received and we actively monitor their use. We are launching a new set of voluntary benefits in June 2006 – ‘Bikes4work’, discounted gym membership and discounted private healthcare – and will use the opportunity to re-promote our existing benefits in this area.


Policy improvements To support the policies already in place enabling parents to request flexible working we have introduced greater clarity around other types of leave that employees may request. These include leave for religious purposes and to carry out work with charities such as RedR to support disaster relief. It is hoped that these will encourage our employees to get more involved with their communities.

Elected

Following on from the introduction of an Occupational Health Service and an EAP, this year has seen the introduction of an ‘Attendance Management’ policy, with the aim of ensuring that employees who take sick leave are treated in a fair and sensitive way.

Represented

The UK’s Company Car Policy and Staff Handbook have also been reviewed to ensure that they are giving the right message to potential employees in terms of attracting them to Atkins, and aiding retention within the Group – both key objectives as we move forwards. Flexible working continues to be a business initiative and whilst no corporate policies have been introduced to support work-life balance, all businesses are encouraged to seriously consider all requests for flexible working, not just those from parents. The introduction of a corporate policy remains under consideration. Business conduct The Group is committed to the fair and equitable treatment of all its employees irrespective of gender, race, age, religion, disability or sexual orientation. Policies are in place across the Group to continue to ensure that this commitment is applied in practice. We are satisfied that we observe good practice in ensuring human rights for our employees. The Group’s policy and practice is to encourage the recruitment and subsequent training, career development and promotion of disabled people on the basis of their aptitude and abilities and the retention and re-training of employees who become disabled. The Group’s Whistleblower policy is a commitment to ensuring high standards of business conduct. All employees are expected to carry out their duties in an ethical manner and to report any instances of malpractice of which they become aware, which are then investigated, in confidence, and appropriate action is taken. We also follow best practice in relation to staff consultation, particularly when staff are transferred between Atkins and another employer, or on the rare occasion that we are facing potential redundancies. Most members of staff have access to the Group’s information technology systems and equipment and a number also have mobile phones and PDAs. It is the Group’s policy to comply with relevant legislation in these areas, including regulations and rights relating to intellectual property, privacy, obscene publications and data protection.

1

Water engineer Yiping Cheng has been elected as a member of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council peer review college.

Management consultant Marek Suchocki was invited to represent industry interests to the European Commission consultation workshop on collaborative environments.

1 The Magnificent 432 A magnificent 432 nominations for Atkins Excellence Awards 2006 – our inaugural event – flooded in from around the world, highlighting the diversity of our talents. They spread fairly evenly across the five categories defined by Atkins’ core values – Innovation, Performance, Customer Focus, People and Integration. More than 3,000 hits on the awards web site – nearly half from outside the UK – showed particular interest from China, North America and the United Arab Emirates. Awards night was hosted by BBC Business Breakfast’s Sarah Coburn at the Queen’s Hotel, Leeds, in May and the winners were: • Innovation: Shaun Killa (Middle East) – for the world's first large scale integration of wind turbines in a major building development, at the Bahrain World Trade Centre. • Customer: Andrew Wilkinson of Asset Management (Leeds) – for building a trusting and talented team who care about their part in making their client, Barclays, great for their customers. • People: Pat Regan of Highways and Transportation (Warrington) – for his devotion to the progression of junior staff. • Performance: Kevin Johnson and Kate Lockey of Design and Engineering Solutions (DES) (Epsom) – for outstanding client satisfaction resulting in repeat architectural and interior design business on Royal Carribean's Enchantment of the Seas cruise liner.


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• Integration: Randal Kliskey representing Management Consultants, DES, Atkins Poland and Faithful+Gould – for exceptional teamwork, trust and competency to provide a new manufacturing facility for Technicolor in Warsaw. • Chief Executive's Special Award: Vinoth Joseph of Rail (Sharjah) for his Relay Interlocking Analysis Tool. • Overall Outstanding Entry: Bob Hope and the Bahrain World Trade Centre. The judges felt that this was a true architectural and engineering 'icon'. Simply put, this is a world class building, delivered by a world class team. 2 Viewpoint improvements Viewpoint, our annual employee engagement survey, highlights areas where our staff think we need to improve the internal management of the Group. Last year’s results pointed to the need to improve the people management styles and skills of team leaders, managers and leaders and communication and influencing skills generally in the Group. As a result we have been focusing on training staff in their interaction with others, including providing clarity of direction and providing the feedback and recognition identified as needing improvement in the survey. We are currently digesting this year’s results and deciding on what needs to be done over the coming year.

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...to develop excellent relationships We strive to respond to the needs and expectations of all our stakeholders, to win their good opinion and develop strong and long-lasting relationships.

Excellent relationships The good opinion of our business partners – customers, suppliers and shareholders – and also other stakeholders such as government, the media and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), is central to our success. For this reason we place major emphasis on ensuring strong and longlasting relationships with all our key stakeholder groups, focusing on: • Understanding clients’ needs and delivering the highest standards of technical expertise, competence and excellence. • Taking a partnership approach to achieving shared aims. • Integrity, honesty and efficiency in communication. • Feedback, review and continual improvement. We are delighted that once again the efforts of our people throughout the Group have won numerous awards and accolades from both customers and independent commentators. We are also beginning on a number of new initiatives to ensure that our relationships continue to grow and strengthen over the coming year.

Number One

Number One

For the eighth year running we swept the board in Building magazine’s annual survey of the nation’s Top 200 Consultants. Described as one of the UK’s ‘superstars’, we were number one consultant, engineer, fee earner and surveyor. We were also the secondplaced architect.

Once again – for the seventh year in succession – we ranked top of the highly respected New Civil Engineer Consultants File. We’re number one in Building, Defence, FM (Asset Management), Geotechnics, Health & Safety, Public Sector, Rail/Rail Bridges, Road/Road Bridges, Telecoms, Transport Planning and Waste.

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Customers Customer focus is one of our core values and effective quality management is central to the Group’s business activities. This is achieved through the implementation and development of formalised management systems which enable not only the control of key processes, but also the capture of customer feedback as a mechanism to facilitate continual improvements. Management structure Many of the Group’s markets demand sector-specific customer support frameworks and it is the managing directors of our businesses who are responsible for customer management. They report to the Chief Executive who is ultimately responsible for customer management across the Group.


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Quality management systems All our UK businesses are independently certified as achieving the ISO 9001: 2000 quality management standard, ensuring a high level of assurance of Group-wide performance. ISO 9001 promotes a process-based approach to developing, implementing and improving the management of quality in an organisation’s operating activities and is a core part of Atkins’ global QSE standard. The businesses are independently re-assessed regularly to ensure they continue to meet the standard and we continually look for opportunities to enhance our approach as we adapt our management systems to meet changing market and customer needs. For instance, our aerospace and defence division has recently been certified to the Aerospace sector standard, AS9100, for its work with Airbus. Another major achievement is the introduction of a single Business Management System for the Design and Engineering Solutions business segment – following the successful amalgamation of the former Design, Environment & Engineering and Industry operations. This harmonisation and rationalisation of existing management systems will ensure a more consistent and efficient approach towards delivering client solutions, enabling flexibility to meet customers’ needs and improved performance reporting. In keeping with our programme of Group-wide assurance, further approvals have been achieved throughout the year. All our operations in China and the Middle East are now certified to ISO 9001: 2000. Customer feedback All our businesses continue to operate processes to obtain and respond to customer feedback, which is vital to the continual improvement of our internal systems and the quality of our work. Each business has developed its own approach to capturing customers’ views, either post-project completion or at key stages of a project’s development; collecting information via a confidential questionnaire, by interview or other means.

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1 Design awards We’ve won four awards in four months for our redesign of Chepstow High Street, gained a Civic Trust Award to add to our collection for work on Hornsea promenade, and the Design Commission for Wales (DCW) now features on its website our landmark development in a Conservation area at Penarth. We also won the Highway Design category at the Local Government News Street Design Awards 2005 for our work on Vauxhall Cross Interchange.

3 A really successful partnership Our Northamptonshire Highways team not only received the Investor in Excellence award, but our ground-breaking roads maintenance partnership with Northamptonshire County Council has been hailed as a major success both by Northamptonshire and the government.

4 Exceptional service Our Asset Management team has been selected by Barclays as their only Tier 1 supplier. Stressing ‘We have re-bid virtually all our other contracts – but not Atkins,’ 2 Somerset’s finest Atkins’ input had been crucial in ‘an Highways Services in Somerset are incredible year’. Senior customer service delivering some of the finest work to be manager for Barclays property network, seen nationwide. So says a recent UK-wide Jan Tilson, a member of our Asset client-compiled analysis. In just two years Management team, was singled out to the team has planned and programmed attend Barclays AE (Annual Eagle) more than 1,000 sites for surface recognition lunch at London’s Canary treatment, prepared 5.5 million-plus Wharf for ‘…people who have delivered square metres of rural and urban roads, exceptional service.’ Atkins’ was the only undertaken 4.2 million square metres of presence from outside Barclays. Daniel surface dressing, laid 1.3 million square Aston and Jane Irving of the ‘One-Call’ metres of road surfacing and completed customer relationship team set up for 30,000 linear metres of road marking. Barclays, were also nominated by bank They even dealt with a succession of staff for AE recognition. ‘quacks’ in the road when four ducklings ran away from a park in Taunton to play 5 Achievement through innovation ‘chicken’ on the A38 (Atkins staff just Bahrain World Trade Centre is believed happened along at the right time). And to be the first building of its kind in the when a bride-to-be rang them in tears world to use wind power for energy they recovered an engagement ring she’d production. It is also a clear statement somehow dropped down a drain. The that developments that embrace solutions team also boasts a state-of-the-art service for conserving energy and the environment management centre which allows satellite can be commercially sustainable. It was tracking of road defects, programming awarded ‘Project of the Year’ and and repair. ‘Achievement through Innovation’ by Construction Week magazine.

Customer feedback is often used as a formal key performance indicator. Design and Engineering Solutions has a new initiative to collect and analyse customer feedback data electronically which will allow more effective collation and comparison, in turn enabling more meaningful performance reporting and benchmarking, both internally and externally to the Group. WS Atkins plc Corporate Responsibility Report 2006

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Relationships continued

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Continual improvement Specific improvement initiatives focused on improving customer service and satisfaction are developed by our businesses on an ongoing basis. This year’s initiatives include Lean Sigma methodologies for signalling design processes in our Rail business; the pursuance of business excellence in our Highways and Transportation business, applying the principles of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Business Excellence Model – particularly in relation to their work for the Highways Agency and several management systems integration and harmonisation projects, for instance in Rail, Asset Management and Design and Engineering Solutions. Suppliers The Group has a Business Conduct Policy which covers the fair treatment of suppliers and ethical trading in relation to our commercial relationships. In dealing with our suppliers we aim to: • Act honestly and openly. • Agree and observe fair, clear trading terms. • Respect the privacy, confidentiality and intellectual property rights of our suppliers. Management structure Our dedicated supply management team is focused on continuously improving the way the Group works with its corporate suppliers. The team also has responsibility for managing day to day relationships with preferred suppliers and for developing policies and procedures to be implemented by the business units in the appointment and management of suppliers, where necessary. Relationships with approved suppliers, providing specific products and services to individual businesses are managed by them. We have three key groups of suppliers: • Preferred – the major suppliers with whom Atkins has an agreement for supply to the whole Group. • Approved – who have ongoing agreements to support specific businesses. • Registered – who supply goods and services on an ad hoc basis. Standard processes are in place to manage registration, order placing and payment.

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1 Outstanding efforts 2 Too much paper We were delighted by the kind words Our shareholders receive around of our client for the Khalidiyah 6.8 tonnes of print from us each year. Development Project in Abu Dhabi That’s hardly good for either the “…outstanding efforts in advancing the environment or the Company. So we cause of Architecture with your thought are now offering shareholders the facility provoking and original design submittal to receive e-communications from us, for the Khalidiyah Development design which we hope will greatly reduce the competition. The design jury salutes the impact of producing, circulating and risk you took in challenging the norms disposing of printed documents. of conventional commercial development This will include our report and accounts, and urban design. Your offering reveals interim accounts and notice of meetings. a vision of the promised, a position of the These will be placed on our investor passionate and a place from which we can relations website and shareholders will elevate our critical inquiry into the cultural receive an e-mail as soon as they are responsibilities we have as Architects.” available. Shareholders who sign up for e-communications can also lodge their proxy votes for the AGM online.

We enter into formal contracts with our larger suppliers, while other suppliers are covered by our standard terms of business. We aim to give all suppliers a minimum of 60 days’ notice to changes of terms, to allow time for acceptance and compliance. Contracts with suppliers generally provide for mutual confidentiality. Our approach We follow a stringent process for selection of suppliers to support the Group. We apply the same selection process for suppliers to our customers. Second tier suppliers (supplier who supply our suppliers) are similarly assessed and reviewed where their impact could be significant. This process ensures that our suppliers are both reliable and suitable to the needs of the Group. They also ensure that our relationships with our suppliers are managed on an appropriate and consistent basis. The process allows us to identify appropriate criteria relevant to the goods or services being procured – such as innovation, safety and health, CR, quality, people and service delivery – and compare the potential suppliers against these criteria before selection. A pre-requisite is that suppliers must be ISO 14001 accredited or working towards that accreditation. An additional aspect of the selection process is the Safe Contractor Accreditation to cover those providers who support the management of the corporate estate. This demonstrates that the contractors take safety and health seriously and must report incidents against which they will be measured and monitored. For preferred suppliers a quarterly review process monitors issues including risks and environmental and social impacts. Our suppliers are expected to contribute to the delivery of our Environmental Policy, on a partnership basis. We assess the environmental impact of the goods and services we buy and agree a plan with suppliers to continuously improve and reduce that impact. If necessary we change the products we use, or on occasion our suppliers, if they do not progress towards meeting our own corporate responsibility criteria.


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University

Accreditation

Faithful+Gould US plans a ‘University’, where staff can take online courses and tests and become certified in Faithful+Gould processes, Group processes and external courses/qualifications.

The document and management and control team at SSF in Worcester achieved ISO 15489-1: 2001 Information and Document Records Management Accreditation.

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1 Sustainable furniture 2 Clean green machines Komfort and SIS Interiors are Atkins’ We work closely with our outsourced preferred furniture suppliers. Both UK car and fleet managers Zenith Vehicle organisations have stringent environmental Contracts to ensure the environmental policies and we can be confident our chosen impact of our fleet is managed effectively office furniture has been manufactured and, whenever possible, use vehicle sympathetically from wood sourcing, to manufacturers with a similar focus on the process followed. Komfort for example protecting the environment for future ensure that any suppliers of veneers or generations. A simple example is the hardwoods source their products from replacement of our pool vehicles in Epsom countries with a sustained replacement with the hybrid Toyota Prius. The Prius uses forestry programme, by requiring FSC Hybrid Synergy Drive technology which certification or third party verification by an allows vehicles to run, from an emissions organisation like the Tropical Forest Trust. point of view, under the most efficient To eradicate volatile organic compound mode, petrol and/or electric. It generates emissions from acrylic spray, the company up to 89% fewer tailpipe pollutants than moved entirely over to electrostatic powder conventional internal combustion engines. coat application from July 2005.

Over the year we have continued to make progress in achieving better value for money for the Group’s expenditure on goods and services, developing strong relationships with our chosen suppliers and in improving our supply procurement and management processes. Examples of our policies in action are increasing use of recycled paper throughout the organisation, membership of the Future Forest Scheme with vehicle hire via Avis, incentives for low emission company cars or limiting choice to more fuel efficient models and procurement of consumables from Fair Trade sources. Our supply management team will continue to proactively seek to identify further ways to improve our procurement and supply management performance over the coming year.

All marketing material and press releases must be approved by the appropriate business unit managing director and, where applicable, by clients or business partners. All press releases are also authorised by the Group’s corporate press office before distribution. Major press releases and all stock exchange announcements are additionally authorised by the Chief Executive, the Group Finance Director or the Company Secretary and, where required, the Board of directors.

Shareholders The Board gives communication with all shareholders a high priority. We have begun to promote the use of e-communications by encouraging shareholders to sign up to receive company circulars electronically rather than by post. The Group’s website contains information on current activities including webcasts of the Annual and Interim results presentations to City analysts and institutional investors. The Annual Report is designed to present a balanced and understandable view of the Groups’ activities and prospects. Advertising, marketing and corporate communications We aim for veracity and integrity in all our marketing activities whether conducted centrally or by businesses. There were no breaches of regulatory, advertising or marketing regulations during the year and no complaints were upheld against the Group. All authors of advertising and marketing material produced by the Group must ensure that the material is in line with the standards laid down by the Advertising Standards Authority, the Equal Opportunities Commission and other relevant regulatory bodies.

The Group this year also introduced new guidelines for the production of all printed promotional material. All such material is now produced on paper with a minimum 80% recycled fibre content and uses vegetable based inks, such as soya oil to eliminate the harmful emissions produced by solvent-based inks. The Group’s stock of carrier bags is also now made from recycled paper. The close working links between all parts of the Group mean that instant ease of communication is essential. For this reason English is the official language in all our offices, wherever they are in the world. Our intranet site, accessible by our staff, is also in English. However, a range of language courses, available to all staff, are a long-standing and permanent fixture in our training portfolio. We are also increasingly translating policies and procedures into local languages for our non-UK offices, particularly those with very technical content such as safety, health and environment resources, where accurate translation is important. Business conduct It is a principle of our business approach that we display integrity and transparency in all dealings with customers, business partners and suppliers. No incidents relating to anti-trust and monopoly regulations have been identified in the year and no legal action has been taken by or against the Group in respect of such matters. Staff are not permitted to give or accept gifts, money or favours; reasonable small tokens and hospitality may be accepted but only where they conform to local practice and precedent and do not place the recipient under any obligation.


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...to deliver on our objectives Key CR objectives for the coming year: Safety and health

• In markets and sectors where we have a significant presence increasingly take a leadership role in raising both awareness and standards for safety and health. • Reduce accidents and incidents by 5% in offices and 10% on site. • All relevant professional staff in the UK to obtain CSCS card. • Continue to develop a no blame reporting culture for supply chain near misses and act on reports. • Include behavioural coaching and demonstrable leadership in the scope of director safety tours. • Reduce sickness rates to sector’s best practice levels. • Improve food available in staff canteens. • Continue to ensure stress is appropriately managed. • Further encourage cycling/walking to work where practical. • Complete OHSAS 18001 certification across the Group.

Environment

• Ensure all pool cars are energy efficient or hybrids. • Continue to encourage green travel. • Stop using plastic bags or folders. • Use green specification for all publications. • Encourage web-based communications. • Develop sustainability awareness. • Complete ISO 14001 certification across the business.

Community

• Support and encourage offices in their efforts to be good neighbours. • Promote staff events to raise funds for our three chosen charities.

People

• Maximise benefits of relationships with universities, such as sponsored chairs in Dubai and Greenwich. • Participate at senior level in agenda-setting panels and organisations, such as the National Employment Panel and London First. • Be proactive by including younger staff in dinners, ground breaking and client events. • Promote diversity as a key issue. • Respond to and improve results from annual staff Viewpoint survey. • Continue to focus on staff retention and improving the internal job market.

Quality

• Complete Group-wide achievement of ISO 9001.

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Design and production:

www.collegedesign.com

Printing: This report has been printed by Royle Corporate Print, one of the most environmentally friendly printers in the UK. Under the framework of ISO 14001 a structured approach is taken to measure improve and audit their environmental status on an ongoing basis. The main environmental areas targeted for continual reduction arise from the use of solvents, energy consumption and waste generation. Royle Corporate Print is also Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) chain of custody certified. The printing inks and varnishes in this report contain the maximum amount of renewable vegetable oil based raw material. They combine with hard resins that also have their origins in natural materials. They contain no heavy metal or toxic products and offer greater recycling possibilities than standard inks. This publication is printed on 9lives 80 paper. It is produced from 80% recovered fibre comprising: 10% packaging waste, 10% best white waste, 60% de-inked waste fibre and 20% virgin TCF (totally chlorine free) fibre sourced from sustainable forests. The supplier of 9Lives 80 is accredited with the ISO 14001 standard. If you have finished reading the report and no longer wish to retain it please pass it on to other interested readers, return it to Atkins or dispose of it in your recycled paper waste. Thank you. The Atkins logo, the “open A” device and the strapline “Plan Design Enable” are trademarks of Atkins Limited, a WS Atkins plc company. © Atkins Limited except where stated otherwise.

WS Atkins plc Woodcote Grove Ashley Road Epsom Surrey KT18 5BW England Telephone +44 (0)1372 726140 Fax +44 (0)1372 740055 [email protected] www.atkinsglobal.com