FTSE100 Website Reviews
September 16, 2008
Back in the mists of time, 8th November 2006 to be precise, the Companies Act (2006) received Royal Assent. This momentous event is still causing repercussions as various parts of it become law.
For instance, on 1st October this year a new tranche of regulations come into force governing conflicts of interests and precisely which individuals or bodies can be named as a company director.
However it is the part of the act which came into force last October which is of interest to this blog.
This is the section which first put an obligation on company directors to take environmental, human and social considerations into account. Some parts apply to all companies, others just to those whose shares are publicly traded in the UK.
To mark this anniversary I will be embarking upon a review of leading FTSE100 websites. The aim will be to try and determine from the website alone how close each company has come to fulfilling these obligations.
I will not be going through each and every member of the FTSE100. Instead, I will pick the leading one or two in each sector and see what they show the online world about their approach to sustainability.
Further Details
For those who are interested, the parts of the Companies Act (2006) which are relevant are as follows:
- ALL directors of ALL companies have to have regard for and include in their measure of the company’s success “the impact of the company’s operations on the community and the environment” (172)
- companies listed on the London Stock Exchange (but not the Alternative Investment Market) must publish information about their performance in “environmental matters … and social and community issues” as part of their Business Review, including key performance indicators (417)
The full text of the Act can be found here and the timetable for its implementation here.
Disclaimers
Like any new piece of legislation, the Companies Act (2006) is still bedding in. As such there are debates going on in the background about the extent of these obligations and what constitutes “insofar as is necessary”.
It is therefore important to say that any statement made on this blog is not a legal opinion, informed or otherwise. It is comment upon established fact, as published by a company upon its website, nothing more.
It is also important to state that these reviews are being written independently of Corporate Eye’s core website benchmarking process and are wholly separate from it. Indeed, the former is a simple matter of opinion, while the latter is a rigorous examination of a website following an established methodology.
Picture Credit: “Canary Wharf Behind Trees” by Martin from Flickr under Creative Commons Attribution No Derivate Works Licence.
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Written by Chris Milton · Filed Under All industries, Corporate social responsibility, Site Reviews
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[...] substances known to man, their websites should be models of social responsibility. But will a review of their websites bear this out? Diageo Corporate Citizen Reports [...]
[...] There are three energy sector companies in the FTSE100: International Power, British Energy and Scottish and Southern Energy. It would be churlish to leave one out on a whim, so all three are part of this FTSE 100 Website Review. [...]