8 June 2010

The Costain Group has achieved Gold standard in the field of Corporate Responsibility (CR).

In this week's Financial Times Responsible Business Supplement, it was announced that Costain had achieved a score of 93.1% - a Gold banding in Business in the Community's (BITC) CR Index.

The BITC Index is the UK's leading voluntary benchmark of CR. It helps companies to integrate and improve CR throughout their operations by providing a systematic approach to managing, measuring and reporting on business impacts in society and the environment.

The Gold banding is awarded to companies which: "demonstrate openness and transparency through effective public reporting of its material, environmental and social issues, programmes and performance. Gold companies also tend to expand and adapt their risk management processes by incorporating relevant aspects of CR risk and opportunity."

Stephen Wells, Costain Group Strategy and Business Development Director, has executive responsibility for CR. He said: "This Index includes many of our key customers such as EDF Energy, National Grid, United Utilities, Severn Trent and Network Rail. Those companies and many others understand how critical it is to have credible and respected third party assessment of their CR operation. BITC provides just that and we are delighted to have achieved Gold.

"CR is of critical importance to Costain. It is at the core of our culture, operations and overall performance. Everyone in Costain has been committed to the CR cause and Catherine Warbrick, our CR manager, has worked extremely hard to ensure we achieve our targets. Now we must improve further this year."

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