Section S172 Statement
The Directors are fully aware of their responsibilities to promote the success of the Group in accordance with Section 172 of the Companies Act 2006 and welcome the reporting requirement in relation to Section 172.
Promoting the success of the Company for the benefit of its shareholders is of the upmost importance to
the board.
Further details on how the Directors’ duties are discharged, and the oversight of these duties are included below.
The CEO of Imtech UK, Gautier Jacob, has developed and agreed a revised strategy to 2026 which is aligned with the intention to develop Dalkia internationally through acquisition and organic growth. The growth strategy will increase the UK activities up to £600m, with the activities in Ireland and Scandinavia increasing to €266m.
The board makes decisions in respect of its operations considering the impact of the Group’s operations on the community and environment and the need to maintain high standards of business conduct. In taking decisions the board also considers the impact on its supply chain, which is key to the continued success of the business, across all sectors. In advance of making any decision, Directors are presented with papers and any relevant updates in relation to the Group’s strategic priorities. The board’s priority in making strategic decisions is about what it considers to be in the long-term success of the Group, from both a financial and safety perspective, as safety remains the overriding priority. The board uses information from stakeholder engagement, including employees and suppliers, together with community and environment factors to make these strategic decisions.
The feedback from stakeholders, particularly customers, supply chain partners and employees is paramount to the board when making decisions.
The board also regularly reviews the Group’s safety performance to ensure that the zero harm ambition is met. This commitment means making sure that our workplaces are safe and healthy for everyone, including our employees and anyone working on our behalf.
Our commitment to our clients and customers
In 2021, we continued to focus on delivering for our client partnerships. We are investing in the relationships we enjoy with a wide range of public and private sector partners, while creating new partnerships and broadening our reach.
We recognise the importance of delivering for our customers and positioning for repeat business and new work; accordingly, we work to ‘succeed by delivering a better experience’, across the business. Our priority over the past two years has been to get closer to our markets, improve our services to existing clients and better understand their requirements, and strive for operational excellence.
Management at all levels continue to work to develop, maintain and strengthen relationships with new and existing customers by delivering high levels of customer satisfaction and value.
In 2020, we commenced work on an extensive survey, across our UK business to ask clients and customers for their feedback. Overall the results showed that in the majority of key areas satisfaction was good. We were rated as ‘above the market norm’ in many areas, particularly in safety, quality of service and our relationships with customers. We were also able to identify areas where we can add more value including making better use of data to drive energy efficiency and helping achieve customers net zero ambitions. This valuable feedback has been collated, analysed and shared across our business and is driving continuing improvement in this area.
Our commitment to our suppliers and partners
As a purpose-led, responsible organisation, Imtech exists to create better outcomes for all stakeholders, including our suppliers and partners, with whom we seek to build lasting relationships, treating them fairly, while encouraging them to deliver.
The UK organisations hold supplier events allowing Imtech to communicate the progress and strategy of the business with all invited to the event. It also provides an opportunity to the supply chain and partners to have open dialogue with senior member of our leadership team. Due to Covid restrictions Inviron were unable to hold their annual supplier event which include dedicated meetings with suppliers and the management teams. Inviron will resume in 2022 holding these supplier events. We continue to have a very strong relationship with our suppliers and partners and are always seeking new opportunities to further strengthen the existing relationship.
We also put in place a supplier credit facility with Santander, which is underwritten by our parent company EDF UK. The facility allows suppliers to draw payment for approved invoices ahead of agreed payment terms, the use of the facility is purely at the discretion of the supplier and Imtech receives no benefit.
Our commitment to our people
At Imtech we put people first and at our core. As a relationships-based business, we take pride in nurturing talent and building career paths that are as individual as each employee. We’re proud to have built an inclusive and diverse culture that champions the advancement of our people and supports them in maximising their potential.
Our people first culture is built around the key pillars of safety, respect, inclusivity, innovation, challenge and development.
In 2021, we did much to improve the experience of working at Imtech. We continue to develop and embed our induction processes for new starters to build those early connections and relationships that drive long term engagement. The Career and Development Hub has become the ‘go-to’ place for easy access to all our development offerings and we continue to advertise all our vacancies across the Group on our jobs board to promote career opportunities and mobility across the Group.
Having a diverse workforce at all levels will ensure better performance and better decision making – for our business and for our shareholders. Imtech believes that employing a diverse mix of people makes us a stronger and more sustainable business, and one that reflects the society around us. During 2021 we rolled out bias awareness and inclusion training to all our senior teams and agreed the individual business unit targets for diversity. During 2022 we will be delivering against our action plans and aligning to our Imtech 2026 strategy commitments for diversity and inclusion. We continue to have a strong focus and commitment to attracting and developing women in our business and will also be creating a number of other support networks to represent the diversity of people working in our organisation. During 2021 we reviewed our suite of people policies and have significantly improved our maternity and paternity provisions. We will continue to review all our people policies to ensure they demonstrate and support our value of People at our Core.
Leadership development remains a critical focus for us to ensure we can continue to deliver our ambitions and support our growth agenda. We have continued to invest in the development of existing and new programmes for management and leadership with a particular focus on first line leaders so we are building the capability from the beginning of individuals careers. We have created a number of new offerings to support technical skills development and we will be focussing on creating specialist skills academies during 2022 and into 2023 to provide the focus we need on attracting, retaining and developing our critical skills talent.
Covid provided us with the opportunity to work differently. Our people have responded very positively to increased flexibility in how and where they work, and we are committed to ensuring we continue to support and further enhance opportunities to work flexibly in all areas of our business.
Our commitment to society
Imtech Group employs over 2,945 people within the UK and Ireland, and we are acutely mindful of the responsibility we have to support individuals and the communities we serve – and be a force for good in society. We aim to help restore the connection between companies and a public that has grown increasingly mistrustful of big business. In 2021, we sought to make several changes to the way we work to minimise our negative impact on the environment. We focused on investing in energy efficiency – upgrading heating, lighting and air-conditioning systems across the business – and on reducing our non-essential travel. We consider that we have a role to play in sustainability and in enabling the UK’s transition to a low-carbon future.
The future
Being part of the EDF Group provides us with support and backing to accelerate our growth plans, by giving us access to new customers and new innovative technologies.
We bring to EDF our experience and skill around delivering complex technical projects, our national presence and reputation in mechanical and electrical engineering, technical maintenance, and our systems integration capabilities.
We believe that working in this close collaboration with EDF provides us the opportunity to occupy a unique market position in the UK. Imtech’s skills and experience can support EDF’s delivery of services, as well as offer our current and new clients an exciting range of innovative new services and technologies. Looking forward there are a number of factors which will make the market volatile including inflationary pressures arising from the Ukraine crisis and the longer term implications of Brexit. Being part of EDF makes our Group more resilient.
Finally, we would like to take the opportunity to thank our customers and suppliers for their continuing support and we look forward to working together to deliver a better experience on all our future collaborations.