Our sustainability strategy
In 2010, we launched Future Proof, our corporate responsibility and sustainability strategy. Future Proof is about ensuring that, whilst we continue to improve our own performance as an organisation, we also act responsibly in the world around us.
The vision of Future Proof is to “create sustainable connections” through a series of global initiatives that encourage stakeholders to take locally relevant action using digital technology.
The Future Proof framework incorporates our minimum standards around corporate responsibility governance and reporting, sets a strategic direction for our Group with challenging short and long term targets, provides an innovative model to deliver on our commitments and consists of a suite of standard tools and initiatives for all our businesses.
Future Proof makes a valuable contribution to our corporate strategy through five areas of focus:
Environment
In the light of rising energy costs and the scarcity of other resources, it is imperative that we sensibly and carefully manage our allocation of financial and talent resources. From a financial point of view, using sustainability to reconsider our resource consumption can lead to significant efficiencies. When we consolidated our 8 offices in London into 1 new green building in 2011, for instance, we saved significantly on energy consumption and costs due to the state-of-the-art ventilation system. In addition, we are saving 26,000 A4 pages monthly due to the introduction of the follow-me printing system and enhanced electronic filing capabilities. From a human resource point of view, employees expect a strong commitment from the Group on sustainability and our activities around enabling sustainable lifestyles through recycling and business travel enhance our ability to engage our employees
Community
As brands are engaging their consumer and fan communities on sustainability, it is also essential that we invest in our local communities to learn about consumer attitudes and behaviour, maintain trust in the value of marketing as well as engage our future work force. Our global community initiative GlobalGivingTIME connects our employees with local communities through the sharing of marketing skills and knowledge. The digital nature of GlobalGivingTIME allows us to involve all stakeholders and help them to create practical change. This strengthens our network of relationships and insight into consumer attitudes and behaviour locally and globally. And these digital technologies open up huge opportunities to build scalable, replicable, and connected initiatives that empower people and spark action. We harness the power of digital for our clients to deliver change, whether it is consumer attitudes or behaviour
Market place
Using their connected devices, consumers directly engage with brands through content and entertainment. As a result, it takes unique and creative solutions for a brand to stand out in a crowded marketplace. Our employees need to be able to quickly master our clients’ brands, understand the target audience and deliver innovative and exciting ways for brands and consumers to connect. Projects such as Posterscope USA’s partnership with the United Nations Foundation or Aegis Media Austria’s partnership with Lebenshilfe Wien encourage our employees to think differently about problems. Our evaluation of our worldwide community activities in 2011 showed that problem solving was the most improved skill amongst Aegis Media employees, which contributes to delivering innovative solutions for our clients
Work place
Being able to attract and retain the best industry talent enhances our ability to re-invent the way brands are built. The central role of digital in any modern marketing campaign has increased the need for digitally savvy staff: only the best industry talent can deliver our corporate vision to re-invent the way brands are built. A coherent and innovative CR strategy is a key element of our recruitment and retention approach: the 2011 Global Check-in (our global employee opinion survey) clearly indicated that Future Proof (the knowledge and capacity to integrate sustainability into employees’ functions) is a key driver of employee engagement and commitment. Delivering integrated marketing campaigns in over 80 countries requires that we cultivate collaboration, integration and innovation amongst our employees. The Future Proof framework aims to bring all stakeholders, internally and externally, together to build trust to drive collaboration. Our global initiatives, such as GlobalGivingTIME, are focused on integration across brands and disciplines
Governance
Our ability to engage our employees, to be credible to our clients and investors, and to involve our stakeholders in our initiatives depends on the trust in our Group. To enhance the internal and external trust of the Group it is essential to be responsible, responsive and transparent in what we do. Our extensive public reporting and disclosure, with a very honest assessment of our successes and failures, makes a substantial contribution to building trust in our business.