First Corporate Responsibility Benchmark Published; Marks & Spencer Top-rated Retailer

Business in the Community has published what it describes as the "first business-led, voluntary Index, publicly benchmarking the responsible business practice of companies in a range of different industry sectors".

The new Index is intended to be a business tool for companies to evaluate their own performance and to compare it with their peers'. It enables them to assess the extent to which strategy and values are translated into responsible practice throughout their organisation, in four key areas (community, environment, marketplace and workplace), to identify gaps in performance and make improvements.

PDF versions of the Corporate Responsibility Index Executive Summary and of the BiE Index are available on request from Business in the Community on 0870 600 2482 or e-mail corporateresponsibility@bitc.org.uk.

Luc Vandevelde, Chairman of Marks & Spencer commented:

"We are delighted that we are ranked as the top retailer and one of Britains leading companies. We welcome the Index as an opportunity to benchmark our relative position. Corporate Social Responsibility [CSR] is one of our fundamental strengths, it is critical to our success and runs through the DNA of our business. In our CSR activities we are looking for measurable and lasting results, in exactly the same way that we are for the business as a whole."
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