Carillion’s chief sustainability officer responds to our article about his company’s sustainability targets

You write that “Carillion misses half its sustainability targets” (page 15 and online from 16 May) – following the launch of our 2012 Sustainability Report on 15 May in the House of Commons that was attended by Building.

Carillion deliberately sets very demanding sustainability targets. This is how we have become recognised as a leader in sustainability. Therefore, the decision to highlight in your headline what we had not achieved rather than what we had, showed a lack of understanding of our sustainability strategy and targets and made no attempt to understand the real story. We do not see missing a few targets by the odd percentage point as failure when in absolute terms we have made significant progress. We were therefore delighted with the positive response we had from other stakeholders who recognise the importance to our industry of celebrating success.

Tom Robinson, chief sustainability officer, Carillion

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