6.0
Corporate Social Responsibility
Employees are our most valuable resource. We rely on their skills and talent to grow our business sustainably in the fast-growing data centre and demanding construction sectors. We are committed to investing widely to foster mutually beneficial relationships with our people.
RED embraces corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a guiding principle, recognising the far-reaching implications of our operations on stakeholders, communities, and the environment. Our CSR activities align with Tractebel and ENGIE initiatives derived from the ISO 26000 Social Responsibility standard. We aim to reduce our environmental footprint, promote sustainable resource use, and engage in community development, creating a positive and lasting impact. This report provides transparency on our CSR initiatives and their impact on the environment and society.
Our CSR and sustainability strategy is overseen by the executive team and led by a CSR steering group, with support from dedicated volunteers across our global offices. The HR team drives fair labour practices and employee wellbeing, while the CSR steering group and the leadership team collaboratively manage community involvement initiatives, fostering strong relationships with social stakeholders.
Perform yearly carbon footprint assessment and related action plan.
Develop a new strategy to reduce the carbon footprint from business travel.
Reduce energy use.
Validate and deploy the carbon GO/NO GO process.
Manage waste generation.
Reduce water usage.
Maintain a sustainability education campaign.
Continue implementing the inclusive recruitment process.
Improve site supervision to avoid accidents.
Perform systematic risk analysis in all projects.
Ensure Managerial Safety Visits (MSV) and develop office visits.
Develop involvement in ENGIE No Life/Mind at Risk programs.
Assess inclusion with a focus on pay gap for the main legal entities.
Reinforce crisis management by training crisis cell members and performing yearly crisis exercises.
Train and sensitise intermediate managers on diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Track solidarity projects globally.
Manage initiatives to maintain new Social Value Strategy.
Develop local solidarity actions to raise awareness about social impact among employees.
Expand CSR & HSS evaluation for major and preferred suppliers.
Improve the standard on fighting corruption and apply the ISO 37001 standard globally.
Promote CSR throughout the value chain by implementing the Carbon GO/NO GO and new ESG project criteria.
The environmental aspect of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) involves actions aimed at reducing environmental impacts and promoting sustainability, as outlined in this report. This pillar of CSR emphasises the necessity for RED to actively respond to environmental challenges and make positive contributions to planetary well-being. The report underscores RED's dedication to responsible environmental management and its determined endeavours to effect positive change.
It is important to emphasise that the outcomes of our CSR strategy align with our long-established values and that of Tractebel.
Prioritising the well-being and development of our workforce.
This commitment reflects the various initiatives aimed at ensuring safety, promoting mental health, fostering inclusion, and providing fair compensation, all of which contribute to the overall well-being and development of our employees.
At RED, diversity and difference are fundamental to who we are. As a global organisation, we recognise that embracing a wide range of perspectives, ideas, and working styles, shaped by diverse cultural background, drives innovation and success.
Our responsibility to DEI goes beyond compliance; we are committed to fostering an inclusive, equitable, and respectful workplace where everyone has the opportunity to thrive. This means embedding DEI into our culture, policies, and decision-making to ensure fairness, representation, and a sense of belonging for all employees.
Our IDEA Employee Resource Group (ERG) and its Focus Groups, WiRED and STEM, play a key role in supporting this mission. Focused on empowering, supporting, and celebrating difference, the ERG creates an environment of unity, inclusion, and equal opportunity.
By championing open dialogue, awareness, and action, the ERG helps shape a workplace where every individual feels valued, respected, and able to contribute their best.
IDEA supports RED’s ESG strategy in several ways, particularly under the Social and Governance pillars.
IDEA fosters an inclusive culture where employees feel valued, respected, and supported, directly aligning with the social responsibility aspect of ESG.
Improving Employee Engagement by providing a platform for diverse voices, enhancing employee engagement, satisfaction, and retention, contributing to a positive work environment.
IDEA participate in community outreach and volunteering, supporting social causes and enhancing the company’s social impact in the community.
IDEA ERG is an employee-led working group that can influence internal policies to promote equity and fairness, ensuring that the company’s practices align with the principles of equity and justice, critical components of the ESG strategy.
IDEA support mentoring and school outreach, contributing to equitable talent growth and supporting graduate development.
IDEA contribute to good governance and its DEI commitments, pushing for transparency in reporting DEI metrics and progress.
IDEA offer valuable insights into the needs of diverse employees, helping to shape governance strategies that are inclusive and equitable.
By promoting diversity of thought, IDEA help drive innovation and creativity, which can lead to better services, and solutions, enhancing the company’s competitive edge.
Over the past year, the ERG conducted a strategic review and update, reaffirming its aspirations while introducing defined values for the steering group and a clear stakeholder structure. This strategy is designed to align with the businesses DEI ambitions while ensuring the ERG continues to bring fresh ideas, positively influence company policy, and contribute to a deeper understanding of DEI across the business.
The IDEA ERG ran a series of “Lunch and Learn” sessions tailored for all staff from graduate/early-career entry through to senior leadership. These sessions are decided on each year by the IDEA ERG steering group on a variety of topics including celebration of select festivals, holidays and notable events relevant to RED employees to promote the IDEA ERG and Focus Groups’ aspirations. In 2024, these included Chinese New Year, Eid-al-Fitr, International Women in Engineering Day, Neurodiversity Pride Day, Pride, Black History Month, and Diwali. The aim of marking these celebrations and events is to break down barriers by sparking curiosity.
As part of our commitment, two members of the IDEA steering group led a Navigating Diversity in Management workshop for our Singapore and Manila offices. The session explored how bias manifests in recruitment, equipping attendees with practical insights to foster more inclusive leadership.
Additionally, our Head of CSR travelled to Manila to deliver health and safety training and took the opportunity to provide an update on the IDEA resource group, highlighting its purpose, achievements, and the value of being a member and reinforcing that actions have a far greater impact than words.
RED’s internal women’s network and focus group ‘Women in RED (WiRED)’ has been formed to target the engineering industry and get the matters of gender diversity onto the map at RED. This name is used to demonstrate inclusivity of all women within RED, not just engineers and those with STEM backgrounds.
WiRED’s hard-working and enthusiastic members aim to push key actions that are focused on “empowering women to lead courageously and achieve career success, by cultivating a community of belonging, connection and growth”. Each employee plays an important role in creating a strong, efficient and inspirational organisation, and WiRED seeks to recognise this and provide a platform of growth and support for all.
In January 2024, WiRED underwent a rebranding to align with RED's new corporate identity. The new logo, chosen by WiRED members, now reads "Women in RED".
The 2024 targets were set with a focus on promoting women in engineering and leadership, aiming to build upon the successes of 2023 and work towards ENGIE's 50:50 gender balance target. Additionally, the RED STEM initiative was established as a standalone program to inspire and educate young individuals about engineering.
WiRED’s goals and ongoing initiatives are a driver for achieving ESG goals in the business, with the WiRED women’s network and ESG strategy being mutually supportive in the following ways:
Promoting gender diversity and inclusion in leadership and across the workforce.
Supporting mentorship, career development, and pay equity initiatives that align with ESG social goals.
Advocates for women’s representation in decision-making roles, strengthening organisational governance.
Highlight awareness using HR provided diversity metrics to support the focus groups cause and justify initiatives (e.g., diversity stats, gender pay gap, women in leadership and engineering).
Encourages ethical leadership and policymaking by involving diverse voices.
WiRED supports the ESG strategy by driving grassroots engagement, and the ESG strategy empowers the ERG by providing support and strategic alignment and enhanced visibility, internally and externally.
The number of WiRED members worldwide has increased 30 to 75
Feed into policy and recruitment initiatives
Influence career progression & training
Education workshops
Support mentoring schemes
Support a diversified interview processes
Speak with and inspire young minority groups
Support university initiatives
In 2022, the WiRED Lead role was taken on with a passion for inspiring and empowering women within the engineering industry. Coming from a teaching background, the WiRED lead believed that working from the bottom up was the most effective approach. Recognising the limited pool of new women engineers, the emphasis was placed on inspiring and educating young children at an early age to open their eyes to the opportunities available to them.
During 2022 and 2023, significant progress was made in putting STEM on the map at RED, with growing interest and opportunities for outreach. As the commitment to STEM grew, the initiative needed the right person to lead and develop it within the company. In January 2023, a new STEM Lead was appointed, bringing added enthusiasm and commitment to the role.
Since joining RED, the new STEM Lead has progressed the way RED approaches STEM activities and outreach. They promoted the benefits of STEM activities with schools to senior leadership and drove engagement within the wider staff cohort globally. The STEM Lead defined the company's STEM strategy, presented arguments for supporting STEM activities and events to the boards of directors, and worked with senior leadership to ensure employees were granted the time and flexibility required for volunteering activities.
With RED STEM initially sitting within the WiRED initiative’s remit, it now stands as its own initiative. Within the last year, the number of RED employees registered as STEM Ambassadors in the UK increased from 3 to 25, with another 8 applications in progress, and a further 8 employees globally engaged in STEM activities. The STEM Lead and WiRED members continue to work together with dedicated STEM Ambassadors to inspire the next generation, and RED is excited to support these initiatives for the years to come.
We continue to build links with academia through provision of guest lectures and curriculum advice.
Our STEM initiatives have soared over the past 12 months, with RED staff taking time out to visit thousands of children and young people in the UK and abroad to teach them all about engineering. In the past 12 months, our STEM team have achieved:
Visited 7,900 students worldwide, aged 5-18
Supported 23 events
15 different schools & organisations
STEM Ambassadors increased from 3 (2022) to 25 (2024)
8 applications in progress (presence in each UK office)
Partnered with schools
Designed and delivered our own workshops
Supported school open days & career fairs
Participated in mock interviews
Welcomed students to the office
Initiated the process to officially register as a STEM organisation
At RED, we have always prioritised the health and wellbeing of our people. Our RED Wellness initiative demonstrates this commitment through key resources like the RED Wellness intranet page, which highlights news, and events related to employee health and wellbeing, as well as providing access to supoort resources including the Employee Assistance Programme and our trained Mental Health First Aiders.
We offer a monthly Wellness Induction for all global new starters, supported by a strong network of trained Mental Health First Aiders. Our annual ‘RED Wellness Day’ encourages employees to take time away from work to focus on their health and wellbeing.
Our Health and Safety Policy was updated to include the inclusion of Psychosocial Risk (PSR) management to address psychosocial risks, aligning with evolving workforce expectations and regulatory trends. We have also extended our focus on continuous improvement to include psychosocial risk management.
Looking ahead, we are evolving our Wellness Strategy to globalise it and align with PSR risk management, ensuring a comprehensive approach to employee wellbeing.
In 2024, we arranged eight global wellbeing webinars covering topics including ‘Understanding Neurodiversity’, ‘Avoiding Burnout’, ‘Alcohol and the Body’ and ‘Menopause in the Workplace’.
We were awarded Gold in the Mind Workplace Wellbeing Index 2023/24 which recognises RED’s long-term in-depth commitment to supporting employee wellbeing. As an outcome of this Index, we identified 3 key focus areas:
Managers to act as role models within the business in relation to wellbeing and mental health.
Ensure that mental health of employees is considered ‘business as usual’ and is reflected throughout all teams in the business.
Continued education to build employee knowledge and skills related to mental health and wellbeing.
We continue to provide employees with the information and resources required to support them across all aspects of mental health and wellbeing.
We will continue to educate our employees to encourage the removal of stigma and provide everyone with a safe space in which they feel heard.
We will continue to address workplace factors that may impact employees' sense of wellbeing. We will offer a year-round schedule of regular activities, webinars, and workshops related to health and wellbeing.
Utilising Safety Moments during team meetings to discuss wellness topics
Supporting the globalisation of the RED Wellness initiative
Supporting the nine wellbeing commitments
Educate and reinforce the culture to treat employee mental health as a standard business practice
Globalisation of RED Wellness with identified regional SPOCs – aim to knowledge share, improve regional communications via SharePoint.
Collaboration between HR and Health & Safety, as well as IDEA & WiRED committees
Continued schedule of wellbeing webinars (Global) and workshops (UK) – variety of topics and opportunities for each UK office to choose their workshop topics.
Health & Safety
RED’s aim is to foster a culture of care for the well-being of employees and all other stakeholders that is aligned with our values. Employees should always feel empowered to report concerns and to stop working in an unsafe environment.
Enhanced project health and safety checks including systematic risk analysis are in place to prevent accidents and ensure safety. Managerial Safety Visits (MSV) and office visits help maintain our safety culture. Our involvement in the ENGIE No Life and Mind at Risk programs supports mental health and well-being. Crisis management is reinforced through training and yearly exercises.
Last year, as part of the Group, ENGIE One Safety Culture transformation program, we successfully delivered Safety Culture Training for leadership and management, training 66 colleagues across 5 countries in 8 sessions. This initiative aimed to strengthen our safety culture, enhancing managerial leadership, and fostering commitment and vigilance. Structured around key safety management actions, the training reinforced life-saving behaviours, ensuring a collective responsibility for protecting lives.
Continued development and alignment with ENGIE group rules (ENGIE Corporate, Tractebel)
Conduct mandatory training and reinforce safety culture.
Developing our project health and safety requirements.
Continue Managerial Safety Visits.
Implement a RED standard for Safety in Design.
Enhance subcontractor management and supply chain prequalification efficiency.
Existing social value actions were analysed in 2024, and a strategy for solidarity actions aligned with UN SDGs was developed. These themes were identified through business feedback on recent and ongoing initiatives to ensure meaningful and impactful contributions. Our approach wasn’t to change our social value approach but to recognise what matters to our internal stakeholders and the sectors we serve as our basis for future solidarity action.
This strategy is guided by themes of strategic interest and their alignment with 9 relevant UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs):
1 – No poverty
3 – Good health and wellbeing
4 – Quality Education
5 – Gender Equality
8 – Decent Work and Economic Growth
9 – Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure
10 – Reduced Inequalities
11 – Sustainable Cities and Communities
13 – Climate Action
Our dedication to social responsibility is evident through our global tracking of solidarity projects, ensuring we monitor and support social causes in meaningful ways. We actively manage initiatives to uphold our new social value strategy, aligning our efforts with our commitment to creating social value.
Throughout the year, we successfully delivered 29 corporate actions and solidarity initiatives, reinforcing our commitment to social responsibility and sustainable development. Of these initiatives:
19 focused on charity, patronage, and donations, supporting causes that matter to our communities.
4 were partnership initiatives, fostering collaboration for meaningful impact.
6 were sponsorships, aligned with our values and long-term objectives.
Our internal stakeholders played a key role in identifying social causes, and we are pleased to report that every initiative met its intended outcome. Overall, a strong and purposeful year, demonstrating our commitment to positive social and environmental change.
The company's governance approach focuses on fair operating practices and human rights. Our leadership is committed to ethical decision-making and business practices that benefit the environment, society, and uphold RED’s responsible governance structures, as briefly outlined in this report.
This pillar of CSR emphasises our commitment to rigorous governance which spans across our global organisation.
