Responsibility
We believe operating responsibly is essential to the way we conduct our operations, invest in our business, develop our people and manage our relationships. It underpins everything we do and is a prerequisite to delivering our vision to be the foremost international electricity and gas company, delivering unparalleled safety, reliability and efficiency.
We always strive to operate to the highest standards of corporate governance and we believe in strong business ethics, based around our Framework for Responsible Business and our core values of respecting others and valuing diversity, demonstrating integrity and openness in all relationships, taking ownership for driving performance and operating as one team.
Our Framework defines the principles by which we manage our business and our day-to-day dealings with our customers, employees, shareholders, suppliers and local communities. It is underpinned by Company wide policies and position statements that are available on our website.
We continue to enjoy external recognition of our responsible business approach. We remain on the Dow Jones Sustainability World and FTSE4Good indices and maintained a platinum status in the Business in the Community corporate responsibility index; the seventh successive year we have been accorded this top tier ranking. National Grid is a signatory to the United Nations Global Compact.
Our Standards of Ethical Business Conduct provide a common set of practical guidelines to help ensure that our behaviours are lawful, comply with our policies and licences and follow the values set out in our Framework and our core values. In 2008/09, there were 11.3 substantiated breaches per 1,000 employees compared with 11.6 in 2007/08 and 8.0 in 2006/07. Offences include such things as fraud, internet and email abuse, drugs and alcohol abuse and misuse of company vehicles and other assets. We take all breaches very seriously and disciplinary action can range from a verbal warning to dismissal.
In our 2009 employee survey, 66% (2008: 61%) of respondents considered something would be done if they reported an inappropriate business practice or an ethical issue.
More information on our corporate responsibility and business ethics objectives is included in the Corporate Governance section.
On our website, we provide information on our method for assuring the corporate responsibility information and data in this report and our other public corporate responsibility reporting.