Overview

The Aegis corporate responsibility programme is built around social, environmental and economic responsibility.

The first of these, social responsibility, relates to Aegis's role in the external community, using the skills and enthusiasm of our people and organisation to make a positive impact. Environmental responsibility is built on internal initiatives to reduce our corporate impacts on the environment, while recognising that our activities are largely office-based. Economic responsibility describes our business initiatives to build a more sustainable business model through the services we provide to our clients.

Last year Aegis launched a Group-wide corporate responsibility (CR) programme globally. It is designed to be flexible, respecting the international and diverse natures of Aegis Media and Synovate and recognising that CR means different things in different places.

It involves a common approach, policy framework, programme management and tools for both Aegis Media and Synovate. Measurement and reporting have been developed according to the Carbon Disclosure Project and Global Reporting Index standards. This has enabled us to conduct a rigorous data collection and measure the baseline impacts for 2008 within each business.

Progress is driven locally via country champions, supported centrally. In 2008 we appointed country champions in all markets where Aegis Media and Synovate operate and brought in a CR specialist centrally to manage activity and reporting. The programme is overseen by the CR steering group; during 2008 the steering group reported to the Group CEO.