CSR AT FSM

FSM adopted a CSR strategy in 2007 with the appointment of the new CEO and published its first CSR report in 2008, based on the EURHO-GR® framework.

CSR objectives are defined by the general management and are assessed and improved each year through the CSR annual review. The company’s CSR annual report is used to communicate about the company’s impact on its environment and report about its achievements.

CSR audits, as well as environmental and quality audits are regularly performed by external companies in order to asses FSM’s social commitments.

OBJECTIVE

To reduce risks and environmental impact of construction sites, through awareness-raising of construction firms and their workers.

CONTEXT

FSM produces an average of 300 new dwellings per year. Many building sites are managed at the same time and a lot of parameters are to be taken into account such as time constraints, budget constraints, weather conditions, security and so on. Environment protection was not part of these parameters until 2008, neither for FSM, nor for its partners, the construction firms.

With the development of the company’s CSR strategy, it appeared clearly that some actions had to be taken in order to reduce the high environmental impact of construction sites. The goal was to systematically introduce issues such as water and electricity consumption, waste management and dangerous products in the building sites’ everyday life.

DESCRIPTION OF THE GOOD PRACTICE

FSM first started introducing environmental targets on a couple of pilot sites. It soon appeared clearly that these were just impossible to reach for small and medium sized construction companies. In order to still get results, without excluding SMEs from its contractors, FSM had to shift to a more collaborative approach, to implement a real strategy and produce different tools to help its partners meet its expectations.

First of all, it was decided to introduce some specifications about “green building sites” and waste management in FSM call for tenders’ procedure. Then, the “green building site procedure” was introduced in the contractual documents with each partner. In addition, an environmental agreement is now mutually signed by FSM and each company before the beginning of the construction phase and an environmental meeting officially launches each building phase. The above-mentioned “green construction site kit” is used on each building site.

Key results and benefits

• Meeting environmental targets has become easier on all building sites.
• Most of FSM’s partners took inspiration from this kit and implemented the same tool in their company.
• An environmental footprint measure is calculated at the end of each building phase through the evidence collected in the toolkit.