Consulting Firm Tests Its Credentials
12 December 2001 at 12:12 pm
In what is believed to be a first for a professional services consulting firm, Sinclair Knight Merz has published a Corporate Report – a document that examines its own social and environmental credentials.
The Report provides some valuable insight into its environmental compliance, workforce performance as well as its support for community activities and corporate social responsibility.
And by the company’s own admission there is room for improvement in the area of assessing its corporate social responsibilities.
Sinclair Knight Merz employs 3000 staff in offices throughout Australia, New Zealand, South East Asia and, the Pacific, Europe and South America and operates predominantly in the buildings, environmental, heavy industrial and infrastructure markets.
SKM Chief executive, Paul Dougas says the report is believed to be a first for this industry sector and as such represents a benchmark study.
Dougas says the Report has helped the company identify where it needs more information to fully report against performance indicators.
The Report finds that Sinclair Knight Merz has a noteworthy record on corporate social responsibility, although the information is largely anecdotal and difficult to quantify accurately.
Dougas says the Group could benefit from being able to demonstrate its achievements in this area more objectively.
The Report says SKM’s current systems do not accurately track time, expenditure or the numbers of people involved in its corporate community activities.
It says the company relies on anecdotal information which indicates a rich snapshot of the numerous activities supported corporately and by employees.
However the Report says the current systems of information collection and documentation do not reflect the level of activity that actually occurs.
Paul Dougas says in future SKM intends to collect the information on its data warehousing system in the same manner as client project data.
Sinclair Knight Merz is well known for its support in Australia of the beacon Foundation – a group concerned with the issue of youth unemployment and RedR – Registered Engineers for Disaster Relief.
The full Corporate Report can be down loaded from the Group’s web site at www.skmconsulting.com.
