Corporate social responsibility
As a public sector organisation with a range of key stakeholders, we aim to behave in a socially responsible way. 'Corporate social responsibility', in this context, means that we take account of the impact our work has on the economy, society and the environment.
Our corporate, social responsibility (CSR) policy sets out our overall aims, objectives and targets in this area. It covers operations at our offices, as well as the influence we have on the sector through our policies and services. It meets our commitments to CSR set out in the enabling excellence theme of our strategic plan. We published our first CSR policy in January 2006.
Corporate social responsibility policy 2008-14
[ Adobe PDF 16K | MS Word 84K ]
Our CSR action plan sets out key actions planned until March 2010 designed to achieve the objectives and targets set out in our CSR policy.
Corporate social responsibility action plan
[ Adobe PDF 54K | MS Word 70K ]
We are certified to ISO 14001, an international environmental management system standard and have achieved the Carbon Trust Standard.
Corporate social responsibility report
We review our performance every year and publish an annual corporate social responsibility report. This document reports progress against our corporate social responsibility policy and targets. The report includes our latest and historic environmental performance indicators.
HEFCE corporate social responsibility report 2008-09
[ Adobe PDF 581K ]
HEFCE corporate social responsibility report 2007-08
[ Adobe PDF 192K ]
Benchmarking
We use Universities that Count to benchmark our performance. This uses Business in the Community's environment and corporate responsibility indices to assess the extent to which environmental and social issues are integrated into an organisation’s strategy, practices and performance.
In the corporate responsibility index we were ranked first out of 25 HEIs with a score of 84 per cent. This compares well with a higher education sector average of 67 per cent and a corporate average of 83 per cent. We were also ranked first in the environment index (out of 56 HEIs) with a score of 91 per cent, which compares well with a HE sector average of 62 per cent and a business average of 81 per cent.
HEFCE corporate responsibility index feedback report
[ Adobe PDF 334K ]
Further information
For further information about corporate social responsibility contact Joanna Simpson, tel 0117 931 7411, e-mail j.simpson@hefce.ac.uk.
Last updated 18 December 2009