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GROUP SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2010


ENGAGING WITH THE COMMUNITIES IN WHICH WE OPERATE


OUR GROUP CHARITABLE CONTRIBUTIONS AMOUNTED TO £156,000 IN 2010, EQUIVALENT TO 0.8% OF 2010 PROFIT BEFORE TAX.


Across the Group numerous community based activities took place during the year - from mentoring schoolchildren to fundraising for local charities. The focus of the intervention is decided at the locally level. All our UK offi ces hold regular fundraising events for local and national charities, and activities include cake sales, raffl es and bring and buy sales. Staff also sponsor their colleagues who choose to undertake a wide variety of challenges, such as abseiling, skydiving and overseas charity trips. As an example, 23 members of staff rode in the WSP London to Paris Bike ride in aid of the British Heart Foundation. They successfully raised £11,700 and won the BHF Top Team Fundraiser Award for 2010.


Other examples include WSP Flack + Kurtz’s active participation and leadership in Ace Mentor, a national programme to introduce the architectural and engineering professions to underprivileged high school students since its foundation in 1995. The programme was founded to address the noticeable decrease in the number of design and engineering students. Throughout 2010 we ran weekly lectures and activities to schools and colleges to promote the profession. WSP Flack + Kurtz funds an annual scholarship – The Norman D. Kurtz Scholarship – of $5,000. Since ACE was launched 15 years ago by Charles Thornton, its success has grown exponentially.


Throughout WSP, staff regularly work alongside local universities and schools to provide careers advice and industry presentations. In the UK we provide opportunities for undergraduates to gain work experience during their summer holidays. Students across all engineering disciplines were sponsored both in fi nancial and work experience terms for the duration of their degree course.


Within the UK we also introduced our LaunchPad scheme which creates links between schools in our community and our offi ces. The scheme is primarily designed for 14-19 year old students.


The New York offi ce of WSP Flack and Kurtz participated in “Canstruction”, a not-for-profi t organisation that holds an annual design and build competition to construct fantastic, giant sized, structures made entirely out of canned food. In each city, after the structures are built and the winners declared, the creations go on view to the general public as giant art exhibits. At the close of the competition all of the canned food that has been used to create the structures is donated to local food banks for distribution to community


38 | WSP GROUP SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2010


emergency feeding programs. 2,000,000 pounds of food were donated in 2010.


From the same offi ce WSP staff also supported a team of engineering and architecture students at The City College of New York with their entry in the Solar Decathlon, a prestigious solar energy competition run by the United States Department of Energy. The team will now have a chance to showcase its prototype, the Solar Roofpod, on the Mall in Washington, D.C.


Elsewhere in the USA, staff from our San Francisco offi ce volunteered at a local food bank during the month of November. Our staff from the Boston offi ce undertook various charitable and/or fundraising activities through the year such as the Pan Mass Challenge, the American Cancer Society, Making Strides for Breast Cancer, and Toys for Tots.


COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT


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