Stakeholder Links and Community Engagement
Viridor continues to engage with a wide range of stakeholders in relation to its services and sites. Importantly this includes extensive community and stakeholder consultation and engagement during the proposed development of new facilities or services.
A proactive approach is taken by the Company for all proposed development, including briefings for site liaison groups and key stakeholders, community consultation groups, door-to-door information drops in the surrounding areas to sites and widely-advertised public exhibitions. Examples during the year included consultation for energy from waste proposals in Cardiff and Oxfordshire and landfill re-phasing and new infrastructure at Rigmuir in South Lanarkshire.
Viridor is now establishing site community liaison groups at all major operational sites in Greater Manchester, in line with its Company policy across the UK. These groups provide an important link and vehicle for clear communication between the Company and the local community and other stakeholders. Members are kept informed of site developments and operations and can raise any issues or concerns which are then formally addressed by the Company as appropriate.
| Indicators (Stakeholder Links and Community Engagement) |
|
|---|---|
2008-09 |
|
Number of sites with liaison committees |
33 |
Number of sites with site liaison committees as a proportion of the total number of sites where they would be appropriate |
94% |
As part of its on-going commitment to customer care and improving services, Viridor conducts customer and stakeholder satisfaction surveys using external research agents. These allow for the monitoring of customer and stakeholder satisfaction and the setting of target levels for improvement for particular services, as well as identifying any service or community relations issues for action and improvement.
Following the success of a drivers survey conducted the previous year, another survey was undertaken in the Autumn of 2008. A total of 813 driver interviews were conducted with site customers and the results confirmed that there are very high satisfaction levels across a number of areas relating to site use. Those which scored highest were:
- Helpfulness and politeness of staff (81% of respondents were very satisfied)
- Awareness of the site rules and regulations (74% very satisfied)
- Safety of the site (72% very satisfied).
Very few drivers expressed dissatisfaction with any aspect of the sites. Even for the area with the weakest score, only 8% stated that they were dissatisfied with the 'cleanliness of the site overall', compared with, 62% who said they were 'very satisfied'.
In West Sussex the 2008 customer satisfaction survey questioned users of 10 permanent household waste recycling sites (HWRS) and three mobile sites. The overall satisfaction with the HWRS experience was 96% (95% in 2007), with 68% of customers very satisfied with their overall experience.
The Company's key customer care drivers remain unchanged from 2007 to 2008, being user friendliness, ease of getting into the site and the helpfulness of staff. In addition, staff at HWRSs have been undergoing ground-breaking customer care training in order to further improve service levels and address continuous improvement issues raised in previous surveys.
These surveys give Viridor good levels of customer feedback to consider and action. Further surveys will be completed annually.
During the year, the Company hosted a visit to its Beddington recycling centre and landfill by the EFRA Committee (appointed by the House of Commons to examine the expenditure, administration and policy of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and its associated public bodies) as part of the Committee's inquiry into the future of the UK's waste strategy.
Viridor also remains committed to engaging with the wider public and providing clear information regarding recycling, resource efficiency and waste management via the media and other suitable communications vehicles. A key industry issue during the year was the media attention given to recycling markets during a period of high market volatility. In response Viridor issued regular updates providing clear updated market information for clients and the media. It also produced a DVD to be streamed online following client and media queries regarding recyclate quality monitoring during the recycling process at a MRF.
