Invensys is committed to acting in a socially responsible manner. In last year’s report, we said we were developing a set of guiding principles, the Invensys Intent, on those issues that affect all our stakeholders. Our purpose this year has been to create a greater understanding of, and a higher level of engagement with, these issues throughout the Group, as the foundation for our business, financial and social relations.

Significant advances have been made over the last twelve months in fulfilling the commitments embodied in the Invensys Intent, despite the difficult trading conditions and turnaround pressure: advances in governance structure and management systems; improvements in environmental, health and safety; delivery of new ‘resource productivity’ solutions to customers; and specific initiatives to take forward our dialogue with key stakeholders. In this Sustainable development section, we report on these advances against each of the commitments in the Invensys Intent.

Although we have now decided to narrow our focus to our Production Management and Rail Systems businesses, our commitment to sustainable development is unaltered. In current trading conditions, it would be tempting to give these issues lower priority. We think this would be short-sighted and we have made selective investments in health and safety and training and development and will continue to do so.

During the year, we have reviewed the options for future reporting on our environmental and social performance and impacts. We believe it is important to have an objective framework, against which we and others can measure our progress. Based on emerging best practice in this field, we have decided to work towards compliance with the requirements of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). While the Group’s risk profile will change over the next 18 to 24 months, as we divest the businesses in the expanded Development Division, the GRI will provide a consistent reporting framework for our environmental and social performance and a roadmap for improvement.

As a measure of our progress, we were pleased to be placed in the third quintile of companies participating in the 1st Business in the Community Corporate Responsibility Index. For the first time, this Index offers companies a means of benchmarking their social responsibility performance against others in their sector.

Governance structure and management systems
The Board is responsible for the Group’s overall environmental, health and safety and social policies and procedures and holds the Chief Executive accountable for their implementation. The risks associated with these areas are identified, considered and managed through the Audit Committee and Risk Committee, which report regularly to the Board.

In the environment, health and safety (EH&S) arena, a new EH&S Council has been established to provide leadership and direction to the Group’s programme. The newly-appointed Vice President, Environment, Health & Safety is responsible for implementing this programme, for establishing best practice standards and for the monitoring and reporting of performance. Invensys has well-developed environmental management and reporting systems, which are described in the new EH&S area on our website launched during the year. For further details please visit www.invensys.com/about/ehs02/policy.html