Corporate Responsibility in the UK Construction Industry: a Study of Activities and Reporting
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Corporate Responsibility in the UK Construction Industry: A Study of Activities and Reporting James Daniel Brown, BSc, PgDip. Thesis submitted to the University of Nottingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy July 2012 Abstract Corporate Responsibility (CR) defines the process of self-regulation, whereby an organisation seeks to measure and improve its performance related to the social, environmental and economic expectations placed upon it by society. In the past two decades the prominence, and therefore uptake of CR activities and reporting has increased across many sectors. The pace of this change has varied significantly, with many industries quickly becoming aware of its importance and integrating it into their business operations while others have seen CR as lower priority and have been much slower to embrace it. In the UK, while some of the individual components of CR are governed by legislation (e.g. environmental activities and health & safety), others such as social interactions and CR reporting have little or no legislation associated with them. This lack of any clear legislative requirements effectively allows organisations to report on any topics they wish and results in a very varied approach to implementing and reporting upon the subject. While some aspects of CR, such as reporting (Jones, Comfort et al. 2006), performance benchmarking (BITC, Graafland et al (2003)) and attitudes to CR (Herridge, (2003), Petrovic- Lazarevic, (2008)) have been investigated in isolation, there has been no attempt to provide a holistic view of the industry. This research seeks to do just that by combining a range of data in an effort to build a broad evidence base of the industry‟s reporting practices, performance and perceptions of the industry with regards to CR. This thesis presents the findings from a mixed-method review of CR reporting, activities and performance amongst UK construction companies. Mixed methodologies (qualitative and quantitative) were employed in order to interrogate a range of data sources. The methods employed in the empirical chapters of this work include a review of construction CR reports, a benchmarking exercise and a case study of consultancy companies operating in the construction industry. With regards to reporting, while some longitudinal changes were seen with respect to report size and levels of detail, a number of core or priority topics were identified which were commonly covered by construction companies regardless of which sub-sector they operated in. The benchmarking exercise attempted to compare the CR performance of companies i within three construction sub-sectors (materials suppliers, contractors and consultants) and while some patterns were evident, such as topics where performance was consistently high, no clear trends were seen between the performances of the three sub-sectors reviewed. The case study highlighted a number of difficulties that are faced by consultancy companies and based upon the study, a range of recommendations which could potentially help to address some of them are proposed. ii Declaration of Publication This is a declaration that the research presented in Chapter 4 of this thesis has been published in the ICE Journal of Sustainability (Brown, Parry et al. 2010). iii Acknowledgements First and foremost I would like to thank Tony Parry and Jeremy Moon for their help and support during my research. Without their knowledge and guidance, this PhD would have been a much more daunting and difficult process. Secondly I must thank URS Ltd (formerly Scott Wilson) for sponsoring my research and giving me the time needed to undertake my work, as well as my colleagues for providing a wide variety of first hand insight and advice on studying for a PhD. Last and by no means least I need to thank my family, as none of this would have been possible without them. Thank you to my wife, Sian, for her constant support and her amazing ability to put up with me throughout the course of my PhD, and to my son Charlie, whose impending arrival was an excellent source of encouragement to complete and submit my thesis. Finally thank you to my Mum, Dad, Brother and Grandparents for their support and encouragement (and financial assistance), without which I could not have undertaken my BSc, let alone studied for a PhD. iv Table of Contents 1. Introduction and Aim .................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Project Rationale .......................................................................................................... 2 1.2 Aims and Objectives ..................................................................................................... 5 1.3 Research Questions ..................................................................................................... 6 1.3.1 Reporting............................................................................................................. 6 1.3.2 Activities and Performance ................................................................................. 7 1.3.3 Understanding and Integration ........................................................................... 8 1.4 Thesis Structure ............................................................................................................ 9 1.4.1 Chapter 2 - Corporate responsibility ................................................................... 9 1.4.2 Chapter 3 - A Mixed Methodology ...................................................................... 9 1.4.3 Chapter 4 - CR Reporting Trends In UK Construction ..................................... 10 1.4.4 Chapter 5 - Benchmarking of Corporate Responsibility ................................... 11 1.4.5 Chapter 6 - Consultancy Sub-Sector Case Study ............................................ 12 1.4.6 Chapter 7 - Discussion and Conclusions .......................................................... 13 2. Corporate responsibility .......................................................................................... 14 2.1 Choice of Terminology ................................................................................................ 14 2.2 The Construction Industry ........................................................................................... 14 2.3 Introduction to Corporate Responsibility ..................................................................... 15 2.3.1 Defining CR ....................................................................................................... 16 2.4 History of CR – Evolution and Purpose ...................................................................... 20 2.4.1 Evolution ........................................................................................................... 21 2.4.2 Purpose of CR .................................................................................................. 23 2.5 The Importance of CR and its Drivers ........................................................................ 24 2.6 CR, Sustainability, Sustainable Development and Sustainable Construction ............ 33 2.7 Corporate Responsibility in Other Industries .............................................................. 35 2.7.1 Food Retail Industry .......................................................................................... 35 2.7.2 Financial Industry .............................................................................................. 37 2.7.3 Apparel and Footwear Industries ...................................................................... 39 v 2.7.4 Extractive Industries .......................................................................................... 40 2.7.5 Generic CR Initiatives and Guidance ................................................................ 42 2.7.6 Summary of Other Industries – Lessons Learned ............................................ 44 2.8 CR in the Construction Industry .................................................................................. 46 2.8.1 Drivers for CR in Construction .......................................................................... 46 2.8.2 CR Activities ...................................................................................................... 49 2.8.3 CR Reporting and Guidance ............................................................................. 51 2.8.4 Corruption and Transparency ........................................................................... 56 2.9 Research Questions ................................................................................................... 58 2.9.1 Reporting........................................................................................................... 59 2.9.2 Activities and Performance ............................................................................... 60 2.9.3 Understanding and Integration ......................................................................... 60 2.10 Chapter Summary ....................................................................................................... 61 3. A Mixed Methodology ............................................................................................... 63 3.1 Comparative Framework – Report Review ................................................................. 64 3.1.1 Comparative Methodologies ............................................................................. 65 3.1.2 Introducing Waves of CR .................................................................................