Hill & Smith PLC - Our Approach

Our Approach to Sustainability

Our purpose to create sustainable infrastructure and safe transport through innovation guides our strategic and tactical decisions, ensuring that improving sustainability is woven into our daily working lives.

DETERMINING our Approach

Our Board responsibility for our overall ESG strategy and the ESG Committee is responsible for translating this strategy into focused initiatives, near and medium-term targets and actions. We determined our ESG focus areas by taking a materiality-based approach to ESG. The first step was to commission an independent materiality study, which involved a selection of senior managers identifying from a longlist of possible subject areas, 15 specific ESG topics that the Group should consider. We then approached 38 stakeholders from across our supply chain. We consulted a diverse range of our employees, major customers and suppliers, a major bank, and several significant investors. We then ensured that each stakeholder group’s key thoughts were recognised by carrying forward their top three areas of interest into our analysis. The next step involved comparing our stakeholders’ input to the relevant Sustainability Accounting Standards Board ('SASB') materiality maps. In Hill & Smith’s case, the two that are most relevant are Engineering & Construction services and Road transportation.

Dimension	Category	SASB matrix		H&S materiality study	ESG Focus
		Engineering & Construction	Road Transport
Environment	Ecological Impacts	.
	Waste and hazardous materials management
	Waste and wastewater management
	Air quality			.
	Energy Management		.		.
	GHG Emissions		.	.	.
Social Capital	Selling practices and product labelling
	Customer welfare
	Product quality and safety	.
	Access and affordability
	Data security
	Customer privacy
	Human rights and community relations
Human Capital	Employee engagement, diversity and inclusion			.	.
	Talent development/employment practices			.	.
	Employee health and safety	.	.	.	.
	Labour practices
Business model and innovation	Physical impacts on climate change				.
	Sustainable products				.
	Materials sourcing and efficiency
	Supply chain management
	Business model resilience
	Product design and lifecycle management	.
Leadership and governance	Systemic risk management
	Critical incident risk management		.
	Management of the legal and regulatory environment
	Competitive behaviour
	Business ethics	.		.	.