Sharing our goals

Actions speak louder than words – and an environmental policy and community engagement will only succeed if it is translated into actions that make a difference to performance. It takes people to do this.

In 2007, we continued our work to make it as easy as possible for our people to understand and implement good environmental practice by making it part of our business processes. Our determination to succeed is driven by the commitment of our senior leadership team, who included environmental goals as part of our business objectives for the second year running.

The more environmental awareness becomes a fundamental part of the way we do business, the harder it is to single out individuals’ achievements. Every champion needs the wholehearted support of his or her colleagues in order to succeed. In this report we describe the work of our green experts in the Environment team, as well as the champions in the business who have led some of the initiatives that have delivered significant environmental improvements in 2007.

Effective community engagement is also dependent on support within the business. Project managers across the business have responded positively and quickly with mitigation when residents have raised concerns about noise, vegetation and other issues. We also have a number of champions throughout the business who are leading the way in going into schools and sharing their knowledge with young people, with a wide range of employees who are involved in fundraising and volunteering in their local communities.

Beacon sites

The fact that Tube Lines’ Beacon site scheme went from strength to strength in 2007 indicates how many people share these champions’ commitment across the company. Based on the Considerate Contractors’ scheme, this demonstrates excellence in many areas, including safety, environment, consideration for others, project management and living our values. Twenty three sites were awarded Beacon site status in 2007.

The team working to upgrade Old Street station was presented with its award by Emily Thornberry, MP for Islington South and Finsbury, when station works were in full swing. She said: “It’s easy to take the night workers at Old Street for granted – but the fact they are able to do their work with a minimum of disruption is testament to their professionalism. The work they do is vital to bring the Tube up to 21^st century standard – I very much value the work they are doing, and I was glad to have the chance to thank them on behalf of my constituents.”

Following recognition of its Beacon status, other project and maintenance teams from Tube Lines visited Old Street station to learn from the excellent standard of working practice achieved.

Training and apprentices

We continue to deliver Go Green training courses tailored to the needs of different people’s roles across the company. In April 2007, we introduced basic environmental training into mandatory entry permit training and since then, 2,700 on-site employees and contractors have attended these courses. Approximately 1,200 employees have also attended advanced environmental training courses tailored to their role, since 2005.

Our apprentices spend two weeks shadowing Health, Safety & Environmental advisers and one day concentrating on significant environmental issues as part of their second year.

Tube Lines was singled out as best employer in London for apprentices when we won the Large Employer of the Year Award for London in the City & Guilds Apprenticeship Awards 2007. Twenty six apprentices joined the Tube Lines programme this year – double the intake five years ago when our contract began – making us the second largest employer of apprentices in London.

Organising information

Having the right facts at your fingertips is essential to make informed decisions. Our award-winning, computerised geographical information system (GIS), that maps environmental issues alongside other business data, is available to every employee through our intranet so that they can check for these as they work.

New ideas

Innovation is actively encouraged at Tube Lines and we have won awards for innovative ideas that have helped us to improve our working practices and performance. The focus for encouraging new ideas is our Make us Outstanding programme. At Tube Lines we are passionate about celebrating innovation successes and encouraging more employees to innovate by communicating our achievements. We use a variety of means to do this, in particular the Tell/Ask Terry feature in the employee magazine, Platform, giving employees the chance to share their views with Chief Executive Terry Morgan.

• Sharing our goals