Social Responsibility

At Turcan Connell, we tend to take a very pragmatic view of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). We want to be responsible as a corporate citizen, ensure that business actions are in keeping with beliefs and values, and support staff to take part in activities that ‘give something back’. We see it as a natural complement to the work that we do ‘within office hours’.

Early in January 2009, we carried out a review of the activities that we undertake regularly under the banner of CSR, and realised we regularly engage in many more activities across the firm than we had originally realised. We decided to look at these disparate activities undertaken in different parts of the firm under the six following headings, so that together they form a cohesive programme of ‘responsible’ actions. The six headings are:

• Pro bono work;
• Community volunteering;
• Charity fundraising;
• Environmental policy;
• Diversity; and
• Supporting the arts.

Using these six headings, we are producing a more detailed CSR report which will be available later this year.

Many people across all disciplines in Turcan Connell have interests in activities outside the strict confines of our work. Most recently, for example, we have undertaken voluntary work with the RSPB and raised over £150K by cycling across Eastern Europe for Marie Curie Cancer Care and we also sit on the boards of a number of charities and trusts. We usually support a larger scale charity-related activity about every two years but undertake smaller activities on an ongoing basis.

The choice of activity that we undertake is very often driven by the personal interests or experiences of those taking part and Turcan Connell has always been very supportive of this kind of involvement. We have used the term ‘engaged philanthropy’ to encapsulate our belief in the importance of going past the act of providing financial support to become involved in the widest possible sense and our activities to date demonstrate that belief in action.

Alongside our volunteering and charity-related work, a concern for the environment is another important thread. In late 2008 we commissioned the Carbon Trust to look in detail at our energy use and our carbon footprint at our headquarters in Edinburgh. It was very heartening that the final report by the Carbon Trust was able to highlight only small, incremental improvements as we had already implemented a number of energy efficiency initiatives, which we continue to keep under review.