Corporate Social Responsibility

As our work requires a high level of education and a professional commitment, we are passionate about sharing our knowledge and giving of our time to promote awareness about the engineering industry.  At CGL, we are always open to opportunities to explain what we do, how we do it and the benefits this affords to others in society and the greater environment.

Our staff are actively involved in visiting schools to promote engineering, talking with children to broaden their understanding of construction-related activities.  We regularly provide work placement experience for A-level and degree students affording them a real-world insight into the industry.  We also support the armed forces offering presentations, work experience, and, if employed by CGL, allowing them time off to perform their military duties.

In addition, CGL have supported activities that fall outside our direct operations but within the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics fields, where we recognised a substantial benefit to a local school or organisation.  Recently, we were proud to be sponsors of Team Solstice, a group of Year 9 students who qualified for the F1 in Schools World Championships in Malaysia in September 2011.  

The last ten years CGL have supported First Partnership in their Structures Challenges for primary schools in North Hampshire.  Our engineers have judged the ‘Build a Bridge’ competition and talked about careers in civil engineering to the children.   Nick Langdon, Chairman of CGL, was awarded the Steve Tebb Schools Outreach Award from ICE South in 2010 for his commitment to promoting civil engineering to young people.  Several of our staff are committed to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) as ambassadors for our industry.

Besides the payroll giving scheme, CGL also make regular donations to charities nominated by staff across our offices.  Marathons, triathlons and the John O’Groats to Lands End cycle ride to name just a few of the many fund-raising activities of our staff.  And we don’t support only the physical endurance events, we’ve also proudly participated in BBC’s Children in Need.  

Since October 2006, CGL employees have been involved in the Payroll Giving Scheme, donating monthly from their pay to a wide range of well-known and locally-based charities.  We use Charitable Giving, an approved HMRC organisation based in Devon to distribute our donations to around 20 nominated charities, we try to ensure that we support worthy charities and organisations.

Payroll Giving is an Inland Revenue and Institute of Fundraising initiative to encourage UK citizens to participate in charity giving.  It is a flexible scheme which allows anyone who pays UK income tax to give regularly and on a tax free basis to the charities and good causes of their choice.

As corporate social responsibility plays a prominent role in our business, we encourage all employees to join the scheme through personal invitation and also regularly reminding them that they can opt in at any time.  In 2007, CGL gained the Silver Award and since then we’ve achieved the Gold Award annually for donating through Payroll Giving.

We have built our reputation on providing technically sound, pragmatic and value engineered ground solutions for our clients whilst recognising and adapting to their specific needs and requirements. This concept ties in with the company’s aim to provide sustainable ground solutions by protecting and enhancing the environment through the implementation of our designs and services.  At CGL, we are committed to educating and supporting our staff and supply chain to achieve environmental improvements where possible and passing the associated benefits to our clients.

We have implemented an accredited ISO 14001 Environmental Management System and signed up to 'Halving Waste 2012’ as part of our commitment to the environment.  We are in the process of recording our carbon footprint to enable us to make further improvements in the years to come. Our policy is to promote environmental improvement and our legacy will be contributing to providing a better environment for the future by mitigating the potential damage done by past and current generations.

Health and Safety are key components of our business at CGL, so much so that it is written as part of our 2011 Corporate Values where we subscribe to ‘Health and Safety being core to our business.’  We actively embrace our moral and legal responsibilities to protect our clients, employees and other persons with whom we interact during the project’s lifespan.

Our approach to managing health and safety within the geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering industry is pragmatic and proportionate whilst still seeking ways of maintaining continuous improvement.  We understand the risks and dangers that are inherent in construction and how they may be avoided by careful planning and design.  Our procedures are in place to manage these risks to protect all parties involved in the process.

Our Health and Safety Policy Statement, signed by our Managing Director, establishes our attitude to health and safety, providing a formal statement of our approach to this aspect of the business.

Internationally recognised quality management standards, such as ISO 9001, offer an established framework to monitor business performance and improve management systems for the benefit of both the clients and the company.

As such, our professional quality management system (QMS), accredited to the ISO 9001 Standard, has been instrumental in helping us to improve and monitor our business performance.  We conduct monthly internal audits of our processes to ensure that all aspects of our work are functioning in compliance with the required industry standards.  

CGL’s in-house project evaluation and performance (PEP) system provides a comprehensive structure to monitor projects from proposal stage through to completion.  We, at CGL, have built our reputation on the quality and clarity of our geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering advice, and our clients agree.  Our annual, independently assessed, client satisfaction surveys repeatedly show an extremely high level of client satisfaction for the work we do and the quality of or service and potential for cost savings that arise from it.  Over the last two years, we have been awarded Diamond Standard status, achieving 94% scoring in 2011 based on the feedback received from our clients.  

Quotes from 2011 BenchmarQ Customer Satisfaction Survey

“We have known and loved them for a number of years and now they are winning the lions share of our work.  They are right there on the money”.  (Fairview New Homes)
“They have always done what we need them to do.  They are very efficient." (Fox (Owmby) Limited)
"They provide an excellent service and are technically very good." (URS Limited)

Balfour Beatty’s Zero Harm initiative stemmed from their desire to promote a culture of consistent safety across business, achieving this collective goal through sharing of innovation, creativity and application.  

CGL is proud to be associated with Zero Harm, having contributed to the development of this strategy from inception.  Whilst these goals are already underpinned in CGL’s current safety ethos, we are committed to continually working together to improve safety requirements and operate under best practice in a way that protects our people and the public.

Primarily, Zero Harm focuses on the elimination of fatal risks and hazards, personal and public safety, and monitoring of these tasks on a day-to-day basis.   And by being involved with this initiative, we are able to share our experiences and learn from others with the express view of having zero deaths, zero injuries and zero ruined lives.

For more information about Balfour Beatty’s Zero Harm Policy, please read http://www.balfourbeatty.com/files/pdf/hotspots/zero_harm.pdf.

At CGL, we celebrate our diversity and are extremely proud to have been the first SME to achieve the UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology’s (UKRC) ‘SET Fair Standard’ award, recognising the firm as a champion of gender equality.  Our company was recognised as an ‘Achieving’ organisation for its excellence in gender equality in terms of its overall staff make-up, which boasts more than 50% female staff and a high proportion of women in management. UKRC are quoted as saying that we “make a strong business case for tackling gender inequality to our staff, clients and partners and we have a new gender equality policy which is expressly designed to make appropriate improvements in policy and practice”.

We recruit entirely on merit and this has allowed us to have a rich and vibrant mix of people within the organisation.  Once with us, advancement is based on achieving competencies and professional development.  Our company’s ethical values support this equal opportunities policy.