Behind the Scenes:
KBR’s 2021 Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility Report
Since the pandemic, awareness of sustainability has skyrocketed. People see the business value of sustainability and the opportunity it presents as a key driver for winning business, attracting the best talent and retaining clients.”
KIRSTEN MACKENZIE Corporate Sustainability Lead
Meet the Team Behind the Report
The KBR Global Sustainability Team
- Adam Kramer, Vice President of Legal
- Kirsten Mackenzie, Sustainability Consultant
- Laura Fisher, Environmental Consultant
- Claire Barcus, Internal Audit
- Rebecca Mrozkiewicz, Legal Assistant
Support Team
- John Arnold, Senior Marketing Specialist–Content
- Cristine Burgos, Senior Marketing Specialist
- Cong Iu, Senior Creative Designer
KBR is committed to supporting and protecting people, the communities where we live and work, and the planet for future generations. At the heart of that commitment is a strict adherence to ESG (environmental, social and governance) principles. Each year, we produce a detailed sustainability report to publicly communicate our ESG progress to each of our key stakeholder groups including our clients, our employees, investors and shareholders, and partners.
Sustainability is no longer a nice-to-have — it’s a must. More and more, current and prospective clients expect us to demonstrate ESG progress to prove we’re a business worth partnering with. A commitment to sustainability also makes KBR a more attractive investment option for investors and shareholders. Importantly, demonstrating real progress in ESG areas also helps us attract and retain the best new talent. The sustainability report allows us to highlight our performance in these areas and to show our stakeholder groups how we’re creating long-term value and stability, as well as how we’re making a positive difference around the world.
Collaboration Across the Business
Central to the report is the work that happens within the day-to-day business that’s helping us achieve ESG progress. KBR’s global sustainability team works with all key business areas to determine where our business key performance indicators align with sustainability performance. This enables us to highlight quantitative improvements in key ESG topics year on year.
In most cases, our business is fully aligned on social impact topics, such as our health and safety achievements and our commitment to creating a more inclusive and diverse workforce. In other areas, we know we have more work to do to establish new programs and collect data to monitor and improve performance. For example, we implement stringent environmental practices for our projects. But to show this, we need to collect data in key environmental areas — such as climate, biodiversity and water usage — and to measure and monitor performance. Eventually we will do this for all our projects and at all corporate facilities.
Each business and function lead may work with several people within their own areas to collect data and materials.
We measure our progress via a number of global frameworks — the Global Reporting Index, Sustainable Accounting Standards Board, the Climate Disclosure Project, and the Taskforce for Climate-related Financial Disclosure. We also respond to surveys — from MSCI (Morgan Stanley Capital International) and ISS (Institutional Shareholder Services) for example — and are rated by various indices that provide investors with analysis on factors such as companies’ risk and ESG performance. We map all these frameworks to find commonality and then focus on the areas with the most impact and relevance to our industries and stakeholders.
Once the most relevant and material disclosures are identified, the sustainability team contacts leads across every corporate function within each business unit to collaborate on areas of focus. This year, they also developed new processes and systems for data accuracy and future auditability. Each business and function lead may work with several people within their own areas to collect data and materials. On average this can involve up to 200 people throughout the business. Collecting this qualitative and quantitative data is the most time-consuming part of the process but also the most crucial element for getting it right.
Putting It All Together
Once the data is collected, the team spends a few weeks analyzing the information, ensuring it meets the criteria set out by each of the frameworks, and then begins a crucial part of the production — the audit. Claire Barcus from KBR Audit Services recently joined the team to assist with this enormous task. Claire works with legal assistant Rebeka Mrozkiewicz, and together with the internal audit team, they fact check every piece of data and statement, including source and system extract parameters to ensure it is 100% factual, consistent with our other reports, and accurate. Once this is complete, the report content is reviewed by each of the contributors and then by the business leaders and executives.
Finally, all 150 pages of the report are proofread and edited by John Arnold, senior marketing specialist-content, before it’s sent to Cristine Burgos and Cong Iu, KBR’s marketing and design leads, who work tirelessly to take hundreds of pieces of information, data tables, lists, Word documents and images and make the report come to life through outstanding graphics, branding and imagery. They make a conscious effort to use genuine images from KBR projects and, most importantly, ensure that all photographs of people are of KBR employees!
Ultimately, the real objective behind this annual report is to highlight our employees and their work on the projects, solutions, technologies, programs, initiatives and practices that contribute to a better, safer and more sustainable world.
Kirsten Mackenzie, Corporate Sustainability lead at KBR, reflects on how this project has evolved over the years.
“Since the pandemic, awareness of sustainability has skyrocketed. People see the business value of sustainability and the opportunity it presents as a key driver for winning business, attracting the best talent, and retaining clients. You see this reflected in these reports each year, as we continue to embed sustainability firmly into all we do as a business. What’s more, these sustainability reports are a record of our shared purpose and journey at KBR.”
What’s more, these sustainability reports are a record of our shared purpose and journey at KBR.”
KIRSTEN MACKENZIE Corporate Sustainability Lead
This core team of people have produced another fantastic Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility Report, which you can now read here.
You can also find out more about the team and their work at Sustainability - Home (sharepoint.com)
