EasyJet 2015 Annual Report Download - page 34

30 easyJet plc Annual report and accounts 2015
Corporate responsibility
How we run our business responsibly
CAROLYN MCCALL OBE, CHIEF EXECUTIVE
At easyJet we seek to be a responsible company
and make a positive contribution to society. We
want to do the right thing for our customers, our
people, our partners, the communities in which
we operate and the environment. This is very
important to the continued success of the
business. Everyone who has a relationship with
easyJet expects the airline to act responsibly
and continue to improve.
Safety is always easyJet's highest priority and comes before any of
our other responsibilities. We continue to maintain comprehensive
processes and structures to monitor and manage safety-related risk
throughout the Company.
We remain passionate about making travel easy and affordable for
our customers. Our Customer Charter has continued to be a guide
for all our people. This year we have particularly focused on how we
support customers when there is disruption to their journey. We have
made improvements to our support at airports and in our
communication to customers, including innovative use of digital
technology such as the easyJet mobile app.
Our culture is an essential part of our success. Bringing the values of
safety, pioneering, one team, passion, integrity and simplicity alive
every day is important to all our people. So it is essential that easyJet
continues to attract, develop and retain the right people. It is our
people who will help to meet our ambition of being Europe's
preferred short-haul airline.
We value diversity and believe it contributes to our continued
success. One aspect of this is female talent in our business. easyJet
already focuses on ensuring there is a pipeline of women coming up
through the organisation. The easyJet women's network started four
years ago and has now got great momentum, which comes from
the women across our airline. It strengthens this pipeline of talent.
As part of increasing the representation of women across the airline,
we are now increasing our efforts to recruit female pilots. We
recognise that the proportion of our pilots who are female is too low,
though this is common in the airline industry. We want to encourage
more women to join and stay in this interesting, highly-skilled and
well-rewarded profession. We have set an initial target to double the
proportion of female new entrant pilots over two years, as the first
phase of a long-term strategy to increase the proportion of female
pilots in the airline and bring more women into more senior ranks
and management roles.
The nature of our business means that our carbon emissions will
be our largest environmental impact for the foreseeable future.
We continue to be an efficient airline, due to a modern fleet
and high load factor. It is the right thing to continue to work to
reduce our environmental impact, but it is also absolutely central
to maintaining our cost advantage and wider business efficiency.
In 2013 we set targets to reduce our carbon emissions per
passenger kilometre by 5% by 2022 and we have already
achieved a 3% reduction, so we have increased the target
further to 8% by 2020.
We also want to have strong, positive and effective relationships with
our partners. We already have very good relationships with most of
them. We have established a supplier relationship management
framework, based on the easyJet values. This guides relationships
and clearly sets out our partners' rights and responsibilities.
We are working to reduce and manage waste from our
operations. A new project is being led by one of our Luton-based
pilots who has also recently completed an MBA in business
sustainability. The project will focus on reducing the amount
of waste from on-board our aircraft, by engaging with our
customers, our crew and our supply chain.
For the first time, this year we are including an independent
report from Rt Hon the Lord Blunkett, Chair of the easyJet
Special Assistance Advisory Group, in the annual report. This
group has continued to provide valuable advice and challenge
to easyJet on how we support people who need assistance
when travelling. A visible sign of the progress this year is that
every easyJet aircraft now has an on-board wheelchair.
I am very pleased that this year we have passed the milestone
of £5 million in fundraising for Unicef. This is down to our crews'
on-board appeals and the generosity of our customers. In light
of this success, and our excellent relationship with Unicef, we
decided this year to continue the partnership for a further three
years. The renewed partnership aims to raise at least a further
£5 million and increase the work between easyJet and Unicef
in all key European markets.
Our customers and employees have told us that they value the
Unicef partnership but they also want us to increase the
contribution we make locally. We have recently expanded this
work, initially in the Luton area around our head office, in
partnership with a new organisation called Connecting
Enterprising Women. They have partnered easyJet female
managers with young women in education, to provide mentoring
and careers advice. This complements easyJet's emphasis on
mentoring within the business to support career and personal
development. Over the next year we hope to develop this
programme and look for other ways we can have a positive
impact in the areas around some of our key bases.
easyJet has made good progress, as seen by the varied
initiatives. Our people are energised and motivated by these
priorities and we all recognise we can continue to do a lot more.
CAROLYN MCCALL OBE
Chief Executive