6: Social Responsibility

Safe Workplaces – The future is safer with Altro

What is Corporate Social Responsibility?

CSR is about how companies manage their business processes to produce an overall positive impact on society. It is the continuing commitment by business to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workplace and families, the local community and society at large.

Reducing Injury

As a society we’re more aware than ever of the many positive effects that a healthy working environment can have on us. We’re also acutely aware of the cost implications of poor health and safety from lost man hours due to injuries and sickness to the wider impacts on families and colleagues. With slips and trips representing over 37% of all recorded accidents (according to the HSE), Altro products have a significant contribution to make. Altro have spent over 50 years continually improving the performance and designs of safety floors, all of which not only exceed the minimum slip resistance standards of the HSE throughout their working life, but also aim to meet all other international Health and Safety standards.

Altro fulfil their corporate social responsibility by

• Having a positive and proactive influence upon the communities in which we operate
• Offering value for money, accessible products, solutions and services and fair and accurate claims in promotional materials
• Ensuring ethical sourcing of materials and fair treatment of suppliers and customers
• Developing long term relationships with suppliers, ensuring they have the same standards and ethical practices as our own
• Conducting our business with integrity, understanding human values and respecting cultural diversity
• Creating an enabling environment for learning, innovation and the sharing of knowledge
• Respecting and complying with local, national and international law
• Providing safe working conditions and family friendly policies

Altro as an Employer

Altro have been successfully listed in the Sunday Times Top 100 Best Companies to Work For for the last five years and is one of the few manufacturing companies to make this prestigious list.

Altro in the Community

We work closely with the local communities in which we operate and have forged strong relationships with schools and other education establishments.  As well as supporting schools via work experience placements. Projects have included the hosting of an Energy Awareness Week where we worked with a local secondary school to raise awareness of environmental issues. Since 2006 we have also designed and implemented an Enterprise Day with a local secondary school, at which Altro employees teach business skills to 14 – 15 year old pupils. In order to ensure our products are installed safely and correctly, we also actively train flooring and walling contractors in our on site safety flooring and wall cladding training schools in Letchworth and Lowestoft.

Altro in the wider Community

We donate our old IT equipment to IT Schools Africa, a Cheltenham based charity that collects old computers, refurbishes them and distributes them to schools in Africa.

IT education in Africa is limited because schools and pupils greatly need computers. Altro’s donations make a major contribution to transforming their lives, especially in today’s world of the Information Economy. Over the last 4 years IT School Africa have sent 20,000 refurbished computers to schools in Africa and trained over 650 teachers.

For more information visit - www.itschoolsafrica.org/