ENERGA Group recognised for its social responsibility

ENERGA Group among the winners of the “CSR Silver Leaf.” This honour is awarded to those of the top 500 companies of Polityka magazine which stand out with their responsible and balanced approach to their business activities.

More and more companies in Poland realise that in the long term, no business success can be achieved in isolation from what is happening around them. Therefore, in their day-to-day activities, they voluntarily consider the public interest, environmental aspects or relations with various stakeholders: customers, employees, shareholders or business partners. Corporate Social Responsibility is becoming an increasingly important element of the management systems in a growing number of companies.

“CSR Silver Leaves” were awarded to ENERGA Group and 19 other companies from Polityka magazine’s “Top 500” which demonstrated outstanding responsibility in their actions in 2012. The companies were evaluated according to ISO 26000 – a standard which structures the understanding of the broadly understood corporate social responsibility, and, owing to the global reach of the International Organization for Standardization, may become the most common CSR interpretation standard in the world.

ENERGA Group earned the “CSR Silver Leaf” in recognition of its activities in the fields of:

• corporate governance – publication of a social responsibility report developed to international standards (available on its website),
• human rights – drawing up and implementation of a Code of Good Practices, which presents the desirable behaviour of company representatives with respect to the company, to one another, to the environment or to the service quality,
• jobs – development and implementation within the Company of a performance review system, among other things,
• consumers and markets – building responsible relations with customers, involving, for example, the development of standards for the safety and quality of products and services, customer data security, and encouraging customers to provide feedback about the Company and its products and services,
• community involvement – inspiring entrepreneurship and developing skills in the region (courses, placements, traineeships), long-term cooperation with educational, scientific and research institutions, promoting health and active lifestyles.

“We are consistently building a socially responsible business, increasingly tailored to the expectations of our customers and the changing market. The first effects can already be seen, as demonstrated by our presence among the award winners”, says Mirosław Bieliński, Chairman of the ENERGA SA Board of Directors. “Further activities that will be subject to comprehensive standardisation involve fair business practices and environmental protection. We are preparing the companies within ENERGA Group to respect the standards of the Eco Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) in their environmental activities, and we are working on non-economic requirements for our trade partners, obliging them to ensure ethical conduct and to respect human rights and the environment.”

For ENERGA Group, sustainable development is a way to accomplish its business objectives while maintaining the right balance between operations, ethics, ecology and the needs of all the stakeholders.

2012 saw the publication of the first ENERGA Group Sustainable Development Report 2011, based on the international guidance from Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), which described the CSR within ENERGA Group in detail. Work is currently under way on a similar publication to summarise the year 2012.

ENERGA – also among the three Pomeranian “Pillars of the Polish Economy 2012”

Our commitment to developing and supporting local communities, and our role as one of the main employers of the region, have all contributed to the recognition of ENERGA Group as a “Pillar of the Polish Economy 2012”, an honour awarded by Puls Biznesu magazine for eight years. The winners are selected by those who have daily contact with the business environment and who benefit from business activity – by local authorities.