Costain Helps Major Charity
23 June 2010
A Costain Executive Board Director has led a major
fundraising exercise for one of the UK's top
charities.
Stephen Wells, Group Strategy and Business Development Director, is
the Company Executive in charge of Corporate Responsibility.
Stephen, with two colleagues, entered the 2010 London Marathon to
raise money for WellChild, the national charity for sick children.
In total, £17,435.00 was donated to the charity including £8,620
from the Costain Group PLC. The Company matched the money
raised in donations by the Costain team. Many of the
donations were contributed by Costain employees, customers and
suppliers. The Costain Group PLC cheque was handed over to
WellChild this week.
Corporate Responsibility is at the core of the Costain culture.
The phrase 'Corporate Responsibility' receives a great deal of
space in annual reports these days. However, the process of
translating those words into actions can be more difficult.
"The reason we think it's important is because how a company
acts and behaves is more than just a set of financial numbers,"
said Stephen Wells.
"It's important to its customers, stakeholders, staff and supply
chain - all the people who depend on it. It's an invaluable
demonstrator of a company's culture and values and behaviour; it's
a measure of its corporate DNA."
Just as there is a correlation between a company's safety
statistics and its financial performance - a safely-run work site
tends to be an efficient one - so there is a link between an
organisation's performance on the corporate responsibility scale
and its profitability.
This has ramifications for Costain's business prospects,
believes Stephen. "I think customers are looking at companies they
do business with, or want to do business with, and asking 'Are
their values and behaviours aligned with ours?'"
This is particularly the case with public sector contracts,
where Government departments are increasingly taking such factors
into account: "We're seeing an increasing number of
pre-qualification documents and questionnaires linked to what's
deemed Corporate Responsibility," he says.
"There's an increasing trend of both public and private sector
companies asking about our policies on factors such as ethnicity,
diversity and good working practices."
With regard to his London Marathon effort, Stephen said: "I had
never done a marathon before. I did a 14-week training course,
stuck to the plan and bought the best possible trainers! It's just
discipline, but what really made it for me was the support I got
from inside and outside the company.
"There was huge support from the external world - many
customers, suppliers etc. The charity was delighted because they
generally need around £1,500 per runner to make it worthwhile for
them."
Stephen was joined in the Marathon by colleagues Graham Read,
Communications Director and Caroline Harris, PA to the Finance and
Communications Directors.
"Graham and I 'adopted' a guy with muscular dystrophy at the
five-mile mark; he said he was the only person with the disease
entering the Marathon and we just went round with him," said
Stephen.
"Graham and I are getting old and we did it in about 7 hours 20
minutes. Caroline clocked just over 6 hours. But the main thing is
we raised the money and that was the driver for each of us."
Karl Gwilliam, from WellChild, said: "This Costain support is
absolutely fantastic. WellChild depends on voluntary funding and
the efforts of the Costain team will see WellChild expand its
community children's nurse programme."
To foster further the Costain Corporate Responsibility ethos,
plans are in the pipeline for Costain to encourage the charitable
efforts of staff, Stephen reveals.
"The intention would be to allow our people up to two days' paid
annual leave for worthwhile causes as long as it does not interfere
with business performance. We will continue to strengthen further
our Corporate Responsibility focus in various ways in the months to
come. It is a vital part of corporate and company life."
Pictured: Stephen Wells (left) and Catherine Warbrick,
Corporate Responsibility Manager, present the Costain Group PLC
cheque to WellChild's Karl Gwilliam.