Macmillan in the community
Corporate social
responsibility in practice
During its long
history, and with a constancy of corporate style due in part to its private
ownership, Macmillan has been concerned to build a reputation for decency and
integrity and to preserve a strong ethical code. The company recognises, in
addition to its responsibilities as a publisher, accountability for its
relationships with the communities within which it operates.
These include:
ü The company’s employees
ü Our authors, contributors, customers, suppliers and business partners
ü The local communities where we have offices, the countries where we have
companies, and the publishing trade and its representative bodies
ü Society at large, including the physical environment
Our ethos is to act with tolerance and understanding,
to discuss issues openly, and to be fair in our dealings with others. These values are communicated to group companies
around the world.
OUR EMPLOYEES
We recognise the rights of our employees and treat our
staff with dignity and fairness within a safe work environment. We encourage development and growth for our
staff and do not permit harassment or abuse of our employees. We are demonstrably fair in our dealings
with our staff and do not discriminate on any grounds other than talent and
merit. Our employee policies can be found by our employees on
the staff intranet and a handbook is available to staff who do not have access
to the intranet.
Macmillan is a meritocracy,
with a strong tradition of encouraging talent, seeking the highest quality
people, and helping them to develop skills. Anything that impedes this process
is strongly discouraged and this is particularly true of any artificial and
discriminatory barriers to recruitment, promotion and treatment of our
employees. We therefore aim to ensure that nobody who works for us receives
less favourable treatment than their colleagues on the grounds of ethnic or
national origin, religion, disability, family commitments, age, gender, sexual
orientation, marital status or, indeed, that judgements are made on any basis
other than the talent and merit of individuals.
We recognise that
we have obligations towards all our employees and the community at large to
ensure that people with disabilities are afforded equal opportunities to enter
employment and to progress within the company. In addition to complying with
legislative requirements affecting the disabled, and the provisions of our own
Equal Opportunities policy, we endeavour to follow procedures to provide for
fair consideration and selection of disabled applicants and to satisfy their
training and career development needs.
When employees
become disabled while in employment, steps are taken, through retraining or
redeployment if necessary, to enable them to remain in employment with
Macmillan wherever possible. In
addition, we train key senior employees to be aware of disability and the
Company policy towards the disabled. Disabled employees are appraised under the
Group Appraisal scheme and are encouraged to help develop their abilities.
OUR AUTHORS, CONTRIBUTORS,
CUSTOMERS, SUPPLIERS AND PARTNERS
Our authors and contributors are an essential resource
without which we could not flourish. It
is important to us that we should do our best for them and look after
intellectual property rights whilst maximising returns.
We try to build long-term relationships with all our
third party partners for the benefit of our businesses through mutual respect,
trust and co-operation. We believe in
discussing our objectives and giving proper consideration to the aspirations of
our suppliers. We aim to maximise shareholder value but we do not believe this
is incompatible with adapting our plans to achieve maximum benefit from
co-operation.
Our policy is to reach clearly defined trading agreements
which are mutually beneficial and to respect their terms and conditions. We do
not believe it is sensible to use our buying power to achieve unrealistic terms
and we believe we should always pay on the terms we have agreed. It is in our
interest for our suppliers and customers to succeed.
THE COMMUNITY
Macmillan encourages its employees to engage in
community and charitable activity and supports them in this. Many of our staff
make valuable contributions to the community outside their working lives. In
particular, members of staff are engaged in:
Environmental work (both campaigning and preservation); mentoring –
particularly disadvantaged children; outreach work for the homeless; religious
involvement; hosting charity and community events; acting as charity trustees; school
governorship; PTA support and school fundraising; partnering in school reading
schemes; training in and refereeing sports activities; local government work;
running theatre group and musical organisations, joining in local hobby groups;
participation in sponsored walks, runs etc (particularly for medical &
educational charities); organising specific fundraising events, at work and
elsewhere; setting up charities in response to crises; ‘adopting’ disadvantaged
children; taking part in overseas projects (eg building schools, surgeries etc);
sponsoring institutions such as schools and hospitals in developing countries.
We make charitable donations to charities related to
reading and education around the world. In the
UK
, Macmillan also actively encourages staff
to be involved in charitable works by:
· Supporting fund-raising initiatives run by our staff Joint Consultative
Councils at each site to help local community charities; and
· Matching funds raised for charities through the efforts of staff.
We play a vital role in our trade associations.
Macmillan directors have served as heads of the
Publishers Association, the Periodical Publishers Association, the Printing
Industries’ Research Association and other industry bodies. At any one time, a
number of staff are engaged in supporting the work of our trade associations,
sitting on government advisory or strategy bodies and teaching in vocational
institutions and universities.
We do not make donations to political parties.
Macmillan has a world-wide presence. We have been operating with other cultures
for over a hundred years and are sensitive to local communities' social
fabric. We have found that we need to accommodate
other working styles to succeed in local markets. Ethical behaviour towards our overseas
workers, including payment of decent wages and the provision of safe and hygienic
working conditions are essential building blocks for our business. We do not use child labour and do not pay
bribes, and we have appointed a consultant to monitor the working practices,
employment conditions and materials policies of our suppliers. We do not use
any supplier who employs child labour.
Whenever possible we recruit top management locally,
encourage high degrees of local autonomy and sometimes share ownership where
appropriate (eg our Black Empowerment initiative in
South Africa
).
We try to administer the functioning of our sites to
avoid causing any sort of nuisance to private or corporate neighbours.
OUR ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
Macmillan is not
involved in manufacturing and is not in an industry where there is potential
for serious environmental pollution, but has many large commercial sites and is
learning how to adopt initiatives which support sustainable development and reduce
the adverse impact that business has on the environment.
Our outline
policy is:
1. To comply with relevant environmental laws and regulations applicable in
each jurisdiction in which we operate.
2. To set and implement guidelines to meet regulatory requirements and
reduce any adverse environmental impact.
3. To take into account environmental issues in the way that we work and
when placing contracts.
4. Where practical, to recycle materials used in our businesses if that
recycling benefits the environment.
5. To continue to manage energy requirements in our buildings.
We would like to
achieve quantifiable results rather than simply appear politically correct and
have appointed consultants and specialists to advise us and monitor our
activities.
In particular, we
have commissioned the Carbon Trust, which is sponsored by the UK government’s
Department of the Environment, to conduct a survey and recommend further
changes we can make to reduce our ‘carbon footprint’.
Meanwhile, we are
already engaged in a variety of practical initiatives to protect the
environment. The following are examples:
- We employ specialist companies to
help us recycle paper and are developing schemes to manage the effective
disposal or recycling of other consumables.
- We dispose of
electrical appliances, including computer equipment, through companies
which conform to the WEEE
(Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) directive.
- We are one of the leaders in the use
of print on demand, which avoids waste of unsold stock by only
manufacturing products for which we have firm orders.
- We have campaigned for many years for
the reduction of aggressive ‘sale or return’ marketing, which can result
in high levels of waste of unsold stock.
- We have been a leader in arranging
‘cyclical’ deliveries of books to major customers, consolidating
despatches to avoid multiple sendings.
- We have major electronic publishing
initiatives, which are already replacing ‘hard copy’ products in some
cases.
- We are reviewing our company car and
travel policies.
- We have installed multiple
video-conferencing suites to reduce the amount of long-distance travel.
- We have converted the bulk of orders
and invoices from paper-based to electronic media.
- We are beginning to install
energy-saving lighting.
- Our packing and distribution
materials contain large quantities of re-cycled material and are
themselves mainly re-cyclable.
- We avoid the use of environmentally
damaging packaging fill and many of our boxes are re-usable.
- We have experimented with re-usable
plastic totes and have designed our conveyor systems to handle these when
they become acceptable to the book trade.
- We re-use internal stationery, eg
envelopes, where practicable.
- We have commissioned an expert survey
of our office printer usage to try to reduce numbers of machines and
copies printed.
- The specifications for new building
developments for our warehousing and distribution have defined rigorous
environmental standards.
- We are developing policies for
shutting down machines, heating and lighting when not needed and when
compatible with health and safety.
- We are installing movement sensors to
conserve lighting use, where safe.
- We are undertaking re-plumbing within
some of our buildings to install facilities which will use less water.
As a
major purchaser of paper, both directly and through our manufacturing
suppliers, we are paying particular attention to the sources of pulp and
timber. We have moved much of our magazine and book printing onto papers which
conform to one of the major recommended environmental standards, for example FSC
(Forest Stewardship Council) or PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification) and we are
in close contact with paper merchants and mills to validate the provenance of
their materials.
The group’s policy is to use papers that
are natural, renewable and recyclable, and which are made from wood grown in
sustainable forests. The logging and manufacturing processes of our suppliers
are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of
origin.
Each of the
Macmillan operating divisions takes responsibility for following this policy,
and our detailed dealings with suppliers reflects the policy. Specifically:
- We work with all suppliers to ensure
that the paper we purchase comes from certified, well-managed
forests. We encourage and expect
improvement and we promote independent certification.
- We are firmly opposed to the illegal
logging of old growth forests. In
cases of dispute, we would consult all parties on an appropriate response
and as a minimum would expect our suppliers to engage with the regulatory
bodies in their countries of operation
- We require our suppliers to comply
with environmental laws and regulations applicable in their countries of
operation.
- We review the policies and
performance of our suppliers on a regular basis
- We encourage our paper suppliers to
understand and support the development of new grades of book paper that
include recycled fibres
- We encourage all our divisions to
include a statement that reflects our policy in our paper based products
We also try to
specify paper sizes in such a way that the reel or sheet dimensions result in
minimum wastage when printed.
OBJECTIVES
We believe we are
beginning to achieve results and develop more thoughtful working practices, but
also believe much remains to be examined. Our objectives are to reduce the
damage we and our suppliers may do to the environment by operating intelligent
policies in the following areas:
Energy
Improve energy
efficiency across the group. We are
confident the review of our
UK
offices and warehouses by the Carbon
Trust will help identify further ways in which we can save energy and reduce
our carbon footprint.
Waste and materials
Continue to improve waste management practices in
order to reduce the amount of waste produced and recycle waste where
practical. Press ahead with publishing
in alternative electronic media which do not need printable materials.
Water
Improve efficiency
in water consumption. We have an
on-going refurbishment programme of our buildings that includes improved water
efficiency systems.
Supply chain
Follow sound environmental and ethical practice in all aspects of our
supply chain, check our suppliers’ own policies where applicable, and minimise
any adverse impact of onward supply, packaging and distribution.
Transport
Reduce where
possible and practical any detrimental impact to the environment of
transporting our goods and our people. We will try to reduce the number of flights taken and liaise
internationally using modern technology instead whenever possible. We will try to minimise the number of trips
taken by our goods and the distance that they travel by the use of ‘smart
logistics’.
Communication
Communicate environmental issues to our staff to
improve their awareness of these issues and seek their assistance in improving
our environmental efficiency.
