The Company’s vision is “to be the most highly respected company in the industry.” To achieve this vision we have to build, maintain, protect and enhance our reputation among our employees, customers, supply chain partners and investors, as well as among the community at large. A fundamental contribution to making this vision become reality is our robust approach to corporate responsibility, led by the Board and embedded in all the processes and services we undertake as a business.

The performance and reporting of the Link Corporate Responsibility (CR) programme is benchmarked against both our competitors and customers through the annual Business in the community (BITC) CR Index. This index assesses how we address the whole sustainability agenda, including issues concerning the environment and climate change (including waste and carbon reduction), the workplace (health and safety, employee relations and training), the marketplace (business ethics and corporate governance, customer relations and supply chain management) and community engagement.

The Group has worked closely with the BITC CR Index team to tailor our approach to the pragmatic delivery of our CR programme whilst endeavouring to maximise its impact. This has enabled us to monitor our progress against authenticated benchmarks and set targets to drive continuous improvement.

The Group CR Steering Committee, which oversees the CR programme and is chaired by chief executive Thumilan, meets quarterly with its agenda based upon the four BITC CR Index headings. Reports and recommendations from this committee, formed of senior representatives of the key Group functions that cover health, safety and environment, employee relations and training, community engagement, procurement and customer relations, are placed on the agenda for the Group’s full Board meetings in March, June, September and December.

The Group has put in place a sustainability strategy, supported by a wide range of procedures, policies and statements, which places corporate responsibility at the highest level within its businesses. These include our Business Ethics Policy, Competition Law Compliance Policy and recently revised Group Sustainable ProcurementPolicy.

Our full Corporate Responsibility Report will be available to download shortly.