THE

DIFFERENCEWE MAKESUSTAINABILITYREPORT 2016

Contents

Sustainability is about safeguarding
future growth, whether that be byensuring a continued supply of
innovation within the company
through talent-nurturing initiatives,
or making sure that we encourage
eco-friendly practices.

Balance and Breadth in Sustainability
2
Passionate about the difference we make
5
Pillar 1: Content really is king
8
Pillar 2: Part of our customer Communities 14
Pillar 3: Colleagues make the difference
19
Pillar 4: The key Environmental issues
26
Data table
30
What next for 2017 and 2018?
32

Sarah Weir,
Graduate Fellow, GE

Sustainability, doneright, should be adifferentiator and amaterial source ofcompetitive advantage.

The majority of ourshareholders invest inInforma for the long term
– the very definitionof sustainable.

Alex RothDirector of Strategy and Business
Planning, GS

Gary Nugent
Sales and Marketing, BI

In an everchanging world,with an increasing
generation ofsustainabilityconscious
millennials,
sustainability
should be at theheart of any
credible business.
Mahesh Patel,
Procurement, GS

Sustainability isn’t aseparate issue and shouldn’t
be a separate additionalcost. When it works best it
is part of what we do.
Roger Horton
CEO, AP

Incorporating sustainability into ourevent engaged and motivated ourteam. They see their work as moremeaningful and part of something
bigger. It’s a story that we get to tell
all year long and people listen.
Lindsay Roberts
Group Director, Construction and Real Estate, GE

More than ever before,
the degree to whichsustainability is aseamless part of anorganisation’s strategy
and woven into thefabric of its culture,
is a true differentiator.
Richard Menzies-Gow
Director of Investor Relations

I’m convinced that
this improved accessto knowledge enables
better decisions andcontributes to a moresustainable world.
Therese Franzen
Managing Editor AP

Sustainability should
be an integral part of thebusiness’s strategic
approach.
Lana Howard
New Business Development
Director, K&N

Colleagues’ aims for
Informa and sustainability.

// Sustainability
is not a ‘bolt on’, it’sa core ingredientfor the success ofour business. //// I’d like a world
where our content
is always ethical,
influential andspecialised. //Eleanor Souster,Graduate Fellow, BI// We need to unite
our business behinda coherent visionof sustainability thatruns like a golden threadthrough everything
we do. //// I want to understandwhat we mean bysustainability. I like theidea of having things
across the PLC that unite
us. Sustainability helps
with that. //Jeremy Davies, Chief Product
Officer, K&N// Everyday, I want tohelp every colleague
believe in the valueof sustainability andunlock its potential
to help us differentiate
our business. //Therese Franzen
Managing Editor AP

Ellie Steel,
Graduate Fellow, GS

Matt Harrison// Sustainability differentiates us because
our content and services are part of a global
conversation to help improve knowledge inan age during which issues of veracity, reliability
and information overload abound. //David Cox, Editorial Director for Books Innovation, AP

OUR SHARED

FUTUREwww.informa.com/sustainability

Sustainability needs allof us – so join the debate bysending your thoughts tosustainability@informa.com

INFORMA PLC SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 201633

ABOUT INFORMAINFORMA HELPS COMMERCIAL, PROFESSIONALAND ACADEMIC COMMUNITIES WORK SMARTER
AND MAKE BETTER DECISIONS FASTER, THROUGH
SPECIALIST CONTENT AND INTELLIGENCE, AND
OPPORTUNITIES TO CONNECT AND LEARN.
ORGANISED INTO FOUR OPERATING DIVISIONS, WITH A FIFTH SUPPORT DIVISIONACADEMIC
PUBLISHING

BUSINESSINTELLIGENCEGLOBALEXHIBITIONSKNOWLEDGE &NETWORKINGGLOBALSUPPORT

Publishes high quality
specialist content andknowledge for upper level
academic communities

Provides specialist
data-driven intelligenceand insight

Creates transaction
oriented events and digitalplatforms that connect
groups for businessand trade

Creates and connects
communities based on
sharing insights andlearning, at eventsand online

Supports operating
divisions with businessservices and provides
leadership and governanceto the GroupSERVING COMMUNITIES IN HUNDREDS OF VERTICAL MARKETSLife Sciences... Health and Nutrition... Real Estate and Construction... Agriculture...
Aviation... TMT... Finance... FinTech... Infrastructure... Engineering... Pop Culture...
Archaeology... BioTech... Business and Management... Industry... Sustainability...
Medicine... Philosophy... Internet of Things... Maritime...
PROVIDING CONNECTIONS AND INSIGHT>No. 150m
of times our journals

140,000+
New articles and;c.7,500
Colleagues

25,000+
Subscribers served by our

6,100+
New books publishedc.3,000
Editors> 1.4m sqm

1.3m+
Visitors welcomed to46%
Colleagues under the age of 35

were accessed in 2016

intelligence products

Of exhibition space provided
for buyers and sellers at 210
trade shows£1,345m
Revenue
www.informa.com/sustainability

for academics

our events£183m
Total tax contribution

54%:46%
Female:MaleINFORMA PLC SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2016

1

INTRODUCTION FROM THE CEOBALANCE& BREADTH IN SUSTAINABILITY
2016 marked the third year of Informa’s
Growth Acceleration Plan (GAP), a year
in which the Group continued to invest incolleagues and our capabilities to amplify
the impact of our customers and our content.
This has delivered a progressively improving
performance and achieved greater balanceand breadth across the Group.
Stephen A. Carter
Group Chief ExecutiveIn 2016, we added new
businesses and colleagues,
most notably Penton Information
Services, expanding ourinternational footprint, our market
positions and the talent and expertise
within the Group. We achieved greaterbalance in the mix of our businesses andin the stability and predictability of ourrevenues and we continued to makesteps towards the GAP goal of achieving
long-term and sustainable growth.
Informa’s approach to Sustainability
in 2016 builds on a decade of progressand equally reflects this forward movementof investment, of growth and of thecreation of new balance and breadth.
There is growing recognition of thebreadth of the positive impacts ouractivities and contributions have on wider
society and this is evident throughout thisreport. This ranges from refocusing andexpanding the AfricaCom event tosupport social mobility and prosperity,
to instigating new partnerships with2

www.informa.com/sustainability

organisations like MIT focussed on thedevelopment of new cures as well as
increasing the accessibility of academic
journal content.
There was continued emphasis on ourwork to balance the value created forcustomers and the niche communities
in which they operate with the value for
the Group’s investors, and for our now
7,500 colleagues and value for partners
in wider society.
And there was investment too, withthe creation of the new role of Headof Sustainability, bringing additional
capabilities and expertise with arefreshed focus on our activities.
Informa’s difference
The approach Informa takes to
Sustainability is ever more closely aligned
to what makes us distinctive, and theunique role we play in the Knowledge andInformation economy – connecting people
and knowledge together. In all the Group’s
Operating Divisions, our colleagues andthe products and services they create help
our customers seize opportunities andovercome challenges.
We directly serve the Sustainability
community through events such asGreenBuild, Natural Products Expo andthrough products such as the Routledge
Sustainability Hub. But our greatest
positive contribution to sustainable
development comes through therecognition that Sustainability can help

Informa focus all our products andservices on helping customers to solve
their challenges and those of wider
society, not just the niche ‘sustainability’
themed ones, not just the niche‘sustainability’ themed ones.
Across hundreds of vertical markets,
Informa is the facilitator in the provisionof the knowledge and data, the networks
and the forums that help customers
exchange, connect, interact, learn, planand grow. It is Informa’s ability to amplify
the positive change created by ourcommunities and content that defines ourrole in addressing the objectives of those
sectors. The breadth of these impacts isvast, from creating national infrastructure
and power generation to developingcures, safer shipping and creating jobs.
This is the basis for how we think
about and drive a positive social andeconomic contribution, for the benefit ofstakeholders and society more broadly.
Our direct operations also create positive
benefit through high quality employment,
stimulating work and training for thoseentering the workforce including ourdedicated apprenticeship and graduate
intakes to accredited training and ongoingrecognition and reward of achievement.
The taxes we pay around the world also
support governments to provide criticalinfrastructure to populations worldwide– something that repays our businessthrough a more educated and connected
population. We’re also making progressin understanding and reducing someof the impacts that we want to improve
including our carbon emissions andresource consumption.

The opportunity for 2017
The path ahead for Informa is about
harnessing the broader Group we havebecome, leveraging the new expertiseand talent throughout the business andbringing ever more focus and purpose
to enhance the positive impacts of the
products and services we provide.
There are many opportunities to createstronger, deeper and more collaborative
partnerships with customers in ourchosen Vertical markets. Throughunderstanding their needs, and thoseof their own customers, we can take acreative and commercial approach toaddressing their challenges. We can help
customers prosper and play a central rolein creating value for our specialist
communities through the collaborative
solving of some of society’s challenges,
be that the need for efficient transport,
safer infrastructure, better crop production
or any one of a hundred issues ourcommunities are addressing.
Our Colleagues are rightly proud of theirachievements, and the contribution of
their teams, Divisions and Group. It is ourhope that all readers will sense this fromthe many different and compelling stories
presented from across Informa. We arecommitted to amplifying this wider valuethat we can and do create.
Stephen A. Carter
Group Chief Executive// THE APPROACH INFORMA TAKESTO SUSTAINABILITY IS EVER MORE
CLOSELY ALIGNED TO WHAT MAKES USDISTINCTIVE, AND THE UNIQUE ROLEWE PLAY IN THE KNOWLEDGE AND
INFORMATION ECONOMY – CONNECTINGPEOPLE AND KNOWLEDGE TOGETHER. //www.informa.com/sustainability

INFORMA PLC SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 20163

2016 HIGHLIGHTS

2016 has seen a series of successes around sustainability
for Informa, both within specific shows and acrosscompanywide programmes. Here are just a few highlights.

A YEAR TO

CELEBRATE
x10

Academic Publishing’s Freedom APC
open access pricing model saw atenfold increase in revenues this year
as authors increased the number ofarticles and their desire to pay more
for the service because they see theincreased value from the service

71%

of colleagues told us they felt
engaged at work following
our InsideInforma
company survey

700+

Our One Planet Eating
campaign attracted morethan 700 colleagues who
spent three months trying
to change their eating
habits to be healthier forthem and the planet

Global Exhibitions
completed the first pilot of
our Sustainable Events
Ladder and has rolled itout to three times as
many events in 2016

AllInforma

Our FTSE4Good membership wasreconfirmed and we were able toincrease our score in the Dow Jones
Sustainability Index

4

We expanded our paper policy tocover all areas of our business andmany more uses of timber. We now
source more than 88% of paper fromsustainable sources

110,000

Our acquisition of Penton brought
the Natural Products Expo within
the Informa family of events giving
us access to help more than 110,000
people in the nutritional and healthgood industry access

Nearly three quartersof our AfricaCom attendees
told us that they were inspiredby our conference’s new focus
on economic development andsocial mobility and 85%
said that our work with themenables them to contributeto this agenda

100%of UK colleagues are now paid thewage recommended by the Living
Wage Foundation

Our new Diversity and Inclusion
programme, AllInforma wasdeveloped in 2016 and launches
in early 2017

FTSE4good

88%

MIT

Business Intelligence’s
collaboration with MIT
established the most detailed
benchmarks on drug
development ever which will
help new funding mechanisms
for drug development
be developed

INFORMA PLC SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2016

£120k

More than a third of colleagues
participated in our new, global
Walk the World day, raising ourlargest ever single figure forpartner charities

www.informa.com/sustainability

PASSIONATE ABOUT THE

DIFFERENCEWE MAKEAs a new joiner to Informa in 2016, what has been striking
about the Group is the number of expert, passionate andengaged colleagues who bring impactful and sustainablebusiness practices to their everyday work.
Ben Wielgus
Head of SustainabilityM

any colleagues are
specialists in the markets
in which they work – frombiotech and logistics toarchaeology, FinTech andmaritime. Many more are increasingly
focused on forming closer partnerships
with customers, walking in their shoes
to understand their challenges and theopportunities of their market, and meeting
those needs with critical information, dataand opportunities to connect and learn.
Almost every colleague I’ve met is looking
to make a positive difference andcontribution through their work – notjust to their direct customers but tothe markets they serve as well.

This year’s Sustainability Report
showcases and celebrates some of theinstances of our contribution and impact
as examples of the approach the Grouptakes, our recent achievements, andwhere we believe the opportunities
are for the future.
It is based on first-hand accounts fromcolleagues in every Division and every
region in which Informa operates, and isdesigned to bring this sense of Informa
to life for those customers, partners,
investors and other stakeholders outsideof the Group, while stimulating colleagues
to think even more about how we might
together deliver even greater long term
value to our business, our markets andeach other.
Sustainability as a Mindset
Throughout Informa, we provide the
networks and knowledge that customers
need to prosper, and the Group has
been investing in its capabilities to do

www.informa.com/sustainability

this through the 2014-2017 Growth
Acceleration Plan.
It is increasingly clear that true sustainability
comes through understanding thechallenges that customers in specialist
communities face and what their ultimate
objectives are. We will be successful if
we can focus on our abilities to help thecustomer meet their aims and it isrewarding to see many colleagues using
our skills and assets to help meet themrather than focus on the short term sellingof a subscription, ticket or book.
What are these aims? They are asdiverse and as relevant to all of us ascuring disease, building low carbon
homes, making vital infrastructure safer,enabling goods and trade to flow acrossthe world, attracting new talent into
the construction sector and supporting
the networks that provide financing
to individuals and companies.

INFORMA PLC SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2016

5

PASSIONATE ABOUT THE DIFFERENCE WE MAKE CONTINUED

The Breadthof Informa’s
Impacts
Informa’s products andservices, created through theideas, contributions and energyof colleagues, have a wide
range of impacts. The Group is:Specific to a knowledge and informationcompany like Informa, by curating anddisseminating high quality, trustworthy
content, by providing training and insight,
and by creating opportunities for effective
relationship building, the Group’s
contribution is multiplied as customers go
on to have their own impact on the world.
This mutual benefit creates symbiotic,
interdependent and long-term
relationships, and enables Informa to
reinvest in the ability to do this better.

• Helping solve the recruitment
problem in the constructionindustry by creating jobs for
disadvantaged communities

The next steps for a growing GroupAs the Growth Acceleration Plan enters its
final year, and as we add new colleagues
and expertise, there is an opportunity
to think more broadly about creating
value from sustainability, over a longer
timeframe, and seek to balance thepriorities we have.

• Bringing together the key
organisations that bring theinternet to millions in Africa
so they can access educationand create employment

The approach to sustainability at Informa
has been defined by four pillars since2011, as illustrated opposite, and has
grown and grown since the programme
first launched a decade ago.

• Improving discoverability ofknowledge and content for
100,000s of researchers

Many investments in sustainability are
investments in our core assets and willcontinue over the next decade. An
investment in colleagues’ skills pays backin the future, an investment in more
efficient equipment saves money in thelong run, an investment in a partnershipwith key markets builds our relationships
for the future.

• Cost effectively educating
thousands of doctors andnurses in Africa.

• Running conferences for key
innovators in biotech, green
construction and nutrition• Creating the analytical tools
to allow new financial models
for funding research anddevelopment

Volunteering and donations also remainpart of our approach, for the value itcreates in bringing colleagues together,developing skills and allowing us to
support causes that matter to the Group,and often to customers as well.
Where we can do more is in recognisingand accelerating the positive impact theGroup has on the wider world, bringing
more focus to activities and create a better
platform for co-ordinating and sharing
within Informa. This will inform andenergise colleagues to create more value
from this positive difference.
There are also opportunities to further
measure our collective impact so we canunderstand the outcomes generated aswell as the inputs made. There is the
chance to experiment and have somefun around the ideas and partnerships
we explore too.
The stories in this report also, I hope,challenge any conception that sustainability
is simply a business add-on or distraction.
For us, activities that distract frombusiness objectives or fail to create longterm value do not have a place in our
ambition to grow sustainably and create
opportunities for customers, colleagues
and investors alike to contribute tosustainable development.
Informa’s door is firmly open forcomments, contribution and engagement
as we move forward with our Sustainability
programme and report back on
successes and learnings.

// AN INVESTMENT IN COLLEAGUES’ SKILLSPAYS BACK IN THE FUTURE, AN INVESTMENT
IN MORE EFFICIENT EQUIPMENT SAVESMONEY IN THE LONG RUN, AN INVESTMENT IN
A PARTNERSHIP WITH KEY MARKETS BUILDSOUR RELATIONSHIPS FOR THE FUTURE. //6

INFORMA PLC SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2016www.informa.com/sustainability

INFORMA: THE FOUR PILLARSTHE FOUR PILLARSCONTENTCOMMUNITIESOur differentiator, and our biggest
impact on the world, are our‘products’. As a leading specialist
in the knowledge and information
economy, this means the curation,
sharing and amplificationof knowledge and insight toallow better and moreNT
informed decisions.
TE
N

AG

M

L

LE

EN

CO

T

OUR

OUR
APPROACH

ES
ITI
UN
M

OU
RC
O

OUR
CO
M

We think far beyond theneighbours around our sites and
now recognise our more impactfulrole through creating theplatforms to bring together
customer communities and foster
greater and more effective
collaboration.

UE

S

IR
ENV

ON

COLLEAGUESENVIRONMENT

Our colleagues are how we will be
successful and we can support
them through training, wellbeing
and the provision of opportunity.
This will help with retention,
recruitment and support thedelivery of our growth ambitions.

Our direct consumption of natural
resources and the more material
indirect environmental impacts
through our operations,particularly timber use, third
party flights and materials usage.

www.informa.com/sustainability

INFORMA PLC SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2016

7

OUR CONTENT

WHERE

CONTENTREALLY IS KING

What does Informa
mean by content?

S

imply put, content is what
Informa does. It means morethan our books, journals anddata – content covers all theknowledge and networks that
we curate and share at our exhibitions andconferences. It’s also our competitive
differentiator in every market – it’s why
our customers choose us.
Informa’s content is – and always has
been – our biggest impact on the world.

The level of impact, or amplification, we
have depends on what gets commissioned,
who is asked to speak, the insights shared
and the platforms chosen. At our best, ourcontent is trustworthy, independent andmission critical, helping to solve ourcustomers’ challenges and those ofsociety. Teams across Informa have been
doing some outstanding work this year
and you can read examples here thatshow just how intertwined this is withour commercial success.

87%

Tom Cuthell
Portfolio Director, Telecoms,
Knowledge & Networking

AFRICACOMINSPIRES ECONOMIC
AND SOCIALEMPOWERMENT
Africa’s largest telecoms and technology
event for nearly 20 years, AfricaCom is
an incubator for the architects of Africa’s
digital future. This year, building on theevent’s success, we decided to elevate
the event to become a purposefulvehicle for economic development
and social empowerment – ‘connecting
the unconnected’ and improving
digital inclusion.

First, we wanted to quantify our impact –so we commissioned an economic impact
assessment that demonstrated that
AfricaCom contributes more than 104m
ZAR (£6m) each year to the local economy
and creates employment for over 350
people. In future years, we’d like tomeasure indirect impacts too.
Second, we needed to re-think the design
and production of the event to ensure
we were doing all we could to harness
the transformative power of Africa’s
digital revolution. We made sure that
innovation and entrepreneurship were
key themes by:• doubling the size of AHUB, a sectionof the show dedicated to showcasing
and supporting the tech start-up
ecosystem. This included a boot camp
to pitch for investment and free accessfor key local start-ups• launching an event for rising stars under
30 which included career guidance
and training from Google on the
power of digital storytelling to drive
positive change• creating the Leaders In Africa Summit
where the most influential members of
our community met for off-the-record
debates about the challenges toachieving economic and social
prosperity through digital inclusion.

of delegates said that
economic development
and social empowerment
were important to them
personally74%

said our new focus
was inspirational85%

of delegates said that,through the knowledge andnetworking we provide,
Informa is enabling them tocontribute to economic
development and social
empowerment.

// AFRICACOM CONTRIBUTES MORE THAN
104M ZAR (£6M) EACH YEAR TO THE LOCALECONOMY AND CREATES EMPLOYMENT FOR
OVER 350 PEOPLE. //www.informa.com/sustainability

INFORMA PLC SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2016

9

OUR CONTENT CONTINUED

Emma Greenwood
Associate Editorial Director,
Cogent, Academic Publishing

NEW ‘PAY WHATYOU THINK IT’S
WORTH’ PUBLISHINGMODEL IS A HUGE
SUCCESS
Open Access (OA) supports the wider
dissemination and availability of peer
reviewed research, widening the impact it
can have on society. Our pioneering new
OA pricing model – Freedom APC – helps
researchers find funding to publish theirwork but then allows them to select theamount they can afford to pay based on
their financial circumstances and their viewon the value of the service we provide.
Not only is this an accessible model for
academics regardless of geographicallocation or research area, it is also asustainable business model – revenue
from this service increased tenfold in2016 compared with the previous year.
There were two reasons for this: asignificant increase in submissions as
more authors saw the value of open
access and a three fold increase in of theamount individual authors could and did
pay for publishing an article.
Research funders are increasingly
supporting open access publishingas it makes academic research freely
available to all. By asking the funders
or authors to pay publishing costs,
rather than the readers, this opens
up access to knowledge for a huge
number of people who couldn’t use
it under a traditional subscriptions
model. We asked our Cogent
authors about the benefits theygain from Open Access:10

The best part aboutpublishing with Cogent
OA was having such wide
exposure for my research.
Once I posted my paper on
academia.edu, it shot to the
top of all papers viewed andhas been there for a month!
Christopher Hartwell,
Cogent Economics & Finance

Personally, I like open
access because academic
works should be foreveryone, not just for people
who can afford them.

In the last 6 months of 2016,
we increased the proportionof open access articles within
our entire collection by morethan a third. Evidence
suggests that, on average, OA
articles are read 10 times
more often than non-OA. Of
the 150 million articles people
download from us every year,
the proportion that are OA
has increased by a factor of
5 since January 2014

Mei-Shiu Chiu
Cogent Education

INFORMA PLC SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2016www.informa.com/sustainability

the development of new medicines.
We believed we could find a way of
attracting more investment capital into
drug development through the creation of
new financial instruments that spread therisk and appeal to large scale investors.
Mark Gordon
Head of Pharma ProductManagement, Business Intelligence

OUR EXPERTISE
FINDS NEW WAYS
TO FINANCE CURESInvestment in R&D is badly needed toeradicate cancer and tackle otherdaunting human health challenges suchas Alzheimer’s, antibiotic resistance andmany elusive rare and orphan diseases.
Bringing new cures to market isincreasingly challenging for the biopharma
sector because of the extraordinarily longdevelopment timeframes, high cost andhigh failure rate of new drug candidates:
only 10% of drugs tested in clinical trials
succeed, and the cost of developing adrug is over $2 billion and takes ten years.
In 2016, experts from Informa’s BusinessIntelligence division began working withProfessor Andrew Lo, Director of MIT’s
Laboratory for Financial Engineering, tofind a transformational means of financing

Our challenge was to see if we could
predict the probability of the successof drugs in various clinical trial stages
by applying data science and machinelearning to our drug and clinical trials data.
This data could then be used to create risk
models to enable megafunding of drug
development projects, much like thosein other industries – Hollywood films
and mortgages, for example.
The project worked well. Professor
Lo’s team and Informa drug andclinical trial experts have establishedfar more detailed benchmarks on
drug development success rates thanhave ever been published and the
MIT research team has submitted
two papers for publication.
By publicising these models and methods,
they hope to create more opportunities
to reduce the risk of clinical trial failures– and, of course, less risk means more
funding. As Lo observes, “We seem to
be at an inflection point in treating many
forms of cancer and other disease –now’s the time to be increasing ourinvestments in biomedicine. Better
predictive analytics can help us, andwe’re grateful to Informa for giving us
access to their data and expertise.”// OUR CHALLENGE WAS TO
SEE IF WE COULD PREDICTTHE PROBABILITY OF THE
SUCCESS OF DRUGS IN
VARIOUS CLINICAL TRIAL
STAGES BY APPLYING DATASCIENCE AND MACHINELEARNING TO OUR DRUG AND
CLINICAL TRIALS DATA. //www.informa.com/sustainability

11

OUR CONTENT CONTINUED

Jason Trimmer
Infrastructure Architect,
Heathrow Airport

MAKING THE
WORLD SAFER
Jason Trimmer is Heathrow Airport’s
Infrastructure Architect, responsible
for governance and developing aten-year strategy for radio and cellularcommunications hardware to meetthe needs of one of the world’s busiest
airports. He is a regular attendee at
Critical Comms World (CCW), oneof a series of events run by Emma
Banymandhub from our Knowledge& Networking business. The event
brings together the international
community of critical communications
professionals from emergency
services, transport and utilities.
“CCW is the glue that holds a lot of ourindustry together. I can get in touch withother end users, network operators, theindustry association (the TCCA) andvendors. The atmosphere encourages
us to share ideas and debate upcoming
strategy. What I learn at CCW helps
me fashion the critical communications
strategy for Heathrow – and, having met
people at the event, I can pick up thephone to them afterwards. Why is this so
important? The communications network
at Heathrow is mission-critical – it allows
the emergency services to respond better.
Without an industry event of this scaleand style – which attracts everyone in
the industry – I’d be feeling around in thedark a lot more. And, the team at Informa
listens to our views – I worked withthe team to shape new aspects of theconference, and that ability to takeon board feedback means the events
are relevant to everyone.”

12

Celine Fenet
VP of Global Strategy, Life
Science, Global Exhibitions

NEW HEALTHCAREEVENTS MODEL IN
AFRICA BRINGS
BENEFITS TO ALL
We have an ambition to improve educationand training for medics in Africa, andthereby advance healthcare for all. It’s
important to use to find ways for ourconferences and training to be moreaccessible for healthcare professionals in
Africa through finance model that would
allow healthcare professionals to accessquality education, training and networking
opportunities, while allowing our businessto prosper.

The solution? To have shows in Africa –particularly in Nigeria, South Africa and
Kenya – funded by sponsors andexhibitors so that doctors and nurses
can attend for free or in exchange for anominal fee that is often donated to a local
charity. It suits everyone because it has
increased the number of attendees, whichkeeps the sponsors and exhibitors happy,
while giving healthcare professionals
access to accredited education.
This model has also helped us nurturestrong relationships with local healthcare
leaders. The Nigerian Ministry of Health
now uses Medic West Africa as a platform
to make big announcementson policy and regulation in the healthcare
industry – a complete turnaround fromwhen we were viewed as an organisation
only out for commercial gain a few years
ago. Through an ongoing demonstrationof Informa as a valuable partner in thepush for real, tangible change in theadvancement of healthcare in the region,
we’ve also changed the perception ofInforma to be a vital long term partnerby the medical and trade associations –We are no longer seen as outsiders
but a vital part of the scene.

Medic West Africa is premier A platform that contributes
stage for progressing andto the development
developing the healthcareof healthcare.
industry in the region.
Dr Jide Idris
Prof. Isaac Adewole
Honourable Federal Minister of Health,Nigeria

Honourable Commissioner
of Health, Lagos Statewww.informa.com/sustainability

skills and capabilities of the industry sothat it can be more effective in its positive
impacts on society and the environment.

Natural Products Expo attracts more than
110,000 visitors a year from around 120
countries and is one of the leading shows
for the natural, organic and healthy
products industry. There’s a real passion
in the industry for the nutritional andhealth impacts their products have but
they also care a lot about the social andenvironmental consequences of theirproduction. It’s essential that we do
too –our event must support ourcommunity’s ambitions.

Jo Dickson
Event Technology
Director, Penton

SUPPORTING
THE NATURALCOMMUNITY’SAMBITIONSThe events themselves measure up tosustainability standards ISO20121 andASTM/APEX. In practice this means
reducing the environmental impact andleaving a lasting positive impact on thelocal community. For example, we worked
with Real Food Farms, a charity thatcreates urban farming and market
ecosystems to combat ‘food deserts’in urban USA. We also make sure that
we donate products from the show to
local groups.

As well as the usual store and factory
visits, we offer educational herb
walks and targeted business school
programmes for the entrepreneurs
who make up so much of this community.
We also produce focused events for
women in the industry to help them build
strong networks of peers. These build theOPEN ACCESS
Journals with an open
access option

Number of open
access journals

2016
= 96%
2014 = 91% 2015 = 90%2014 = 60 2015 = 652016 = 108

ACCESS FOR DEVELOPINGWORLD RESEARCHERS
Number of journal article downloads in Inasp, aninternational development charity working to improveaccess to research information in developing countries

REACH
Proportion of book titles
available as ebooks

1,017k
715k

Proportion of accepted
academic articles fromdeveloping countries

76%

851k
62%

36%

63%
20%

2014

2015

www.informa.com/sustainability

20162014 2015 201620%

2014 2015 2016

INFORMA PLC SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 201613

OUR COMMUNITIESPART OF OUR CUSTOMERCOMMUNITIESM

any stories in this report
have at their heart thenotion of creating
sustainable, thriving
communities – not justthe communities around our offices but
particularly the communities we foster
for and with our customers. This iswhere we have our biggest impact.
At our best, we are a partner in discrete,
specialist and often unique markets
and niches. We seek to make ourcustomers more connected, smarter,
better informed and better able to makethe right decisions, personally andprofessionally. This builds our customer
relationships and ensures Informa is seen

as a part of those communities rather
than a simple service provider.
In some parts of our business, particularlypart of our Knowledge & Networking
and Global Exhibitions businesses,
our convening role – bringing together
suppliers, peers and thought leaders –is what our customers value most.
If we create the right environments
and platforms for building effective
relationships, we can have a significant
role in helping those communities be
successful and address the societal
issues they are working to address.
For customers of other divisions, suchas Academic Publishing and BusinessIntelligence, Informa is often the main
curator of the accessible and relevant
knowledge they rely on to make decisions.
Within Global Support, many of ourcolleagues work to promote effective
communities within Informa’s own
business and provide links to external
communities as well.
In 2016, our GAP programme hasenhanced many of the tools, particularly
digital platforms, that we use to target
and connect our communities moreregularly and effectively. 2017 will see
this technology be deployed further.

Anna Chrisman
Managing Director, EBD,
Knowledge & Networking

BUILDING
PARTNERSHIPS TO
DEVELOP CURESOur EBD brand is known as the partnering
company in the life science industry. Ourevents are all about bringing together theprivate and public sectors with industry
associations to cultivate long-term,
trustworthy relationships focusedon improving care for patients allround the world.
For example, our BIO-Europe show
brings together 3,700 people every
year from two groups who need towork together: small biotech companies
looking to get innovations to market
and the big pharma companies who havethe capabilities and desire to take thoseinnovations through testing and to market.
A key pillar of our success is our online
partnering system: We’ve invested insoftware that helps facilitate better
meetings at events. At BIO-Europe event,
the system helps set up more than 21,000
meetings over three days. With the key
meetings set up in advance, attendees
can then spend their time at the event
developing the valuable informal
networking opportunities that are justas important for building relationships.

Jon Benniger
VP Health and Nutrition,
Global Exhibitions

CHOOSING PARTNERS
ON ISSUES THAT OUR
CUSTOMERS CARE
ABOUT
Since 1997, the mission of our SupplySide
West event has been to support thegrowth and prosperity of the dietary
supplement industry. Our 15,000
attendees, 1,200 exhibitors and all thesponsors and speakers work to bringsafe, science-based, healthy products
to market, and part of that is supporting
charity partners who spread thebenefits to the disadvantaged.
Vitamin Angels is a charity that helps
pregnant women, new mothers andyoung children gain access to lifechanging vitamins and minerals. I
couldn’t think of a better partner for us
to reinforce the legitimacy and efficacyof the supplement industry. Their work
demonstrates the power of the industry

to improve lives worldwide. Many in ourcommunity recognize the importance ofVitamin Angels’ work and have partneredwith them in various ways including
donating manufacturing services andmonetary support – and SupplySide
West is no exception. Informa makes adonation to the charity for every ticket
sold, and we also give Vitamin Angels
exhibition space, a profile and stage
presence to allow it to reach a wider
audience to promote its work andbuild more partnerships.
“Vitamin Angels has the ability to unify
and validate the industry in the mostsignificant way while giving millions ofchildren and moms a chance to leadhealthy and productive lives. SupplySide
West’s support has been a rallying cry
to bring us together with the key players
said Howard Schiffer, Founder &President of Vitamin Angels.
Bryn Stewart, Manager at Vitamin Angels
says, “We really value our partnership with
Informa and so appreciate everything that
the Informa team have done for us over
the years. To offer a little perspective, inthe last three years Informa has helped
Vitamin Angels help more than 260,000
mothers and children through donationsat SupplySide West alone.”
While the impact of our financial
contributions is impressive, ourpartnership isn’t about simply writinga cheque each year. We work with
Vitamin Angels throughout the year
to identify ways our partnership canbe mutually beneficial.

This helps us achieve high retention rates
because our attendees value what wedo and consider themselves, and EBD,
as part of a community that works toadvance drug development and ultimately
brings treatment and cures to patients.

www.informa.com/sustainability

INFORMA PLC SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 201615

OUR COMMUNITIES CONTINUED

motivation was to make the most of
scarce resources and overcome ourfragmented brand image. In short,
we wanted to get more bang for eachbuck spent and build Team India!
Shafina Segon
Marketing Head,
Academic Publishing

Nitasha Devasar
Managing Director,
Academic Publishing

COLLABORATION
HAS BEEN KEY
TO SUCCESSIN INDIA
Over the past three years, we’vebeen working more closely with ourcommunity of academics, booksellers
and local publishing groups. Our initial

Mike Quinton
Head of Health and Safety
Knowledge & Networking

Gio Furno
Head of Health and Safety
Global Exhibitions

16

Working closely within our businesshas been key to meeting each of ourcommunity’s needs and reaching new
audiences. Our sales and editorial teams
have increased collaboration from 1%of campaigns in 2011 to 88% in 2016
allowing us to contact 140,000 new
Asian customers a year (3,800/year in2013) and design outputs that better
connect our customers with theknowledge they need.
We took another leap of faith byintroducing greater reciprocity in our
relationships with our customers. For
instance, we’ve partnered with ourbiggest distributor in India to distribute
his titles in several new territories.
We’ve extended this arrangement to
two smaller independent publishers
and, thus, more local scholars haveaccess to the content we provide
and we’ve increased the reach ofother businesses.
We’re also working to educate ourcommunities in key issues. In 2016 wecreated a booklet to demystify copyrightin India and shared it widely shared withlocal publishers’ associations and industry
bodies. It has also been given out at all
our academic events to complement
workshops on copyright awareness.

SAFETY IS VITALIN OUR BUSINESSIn 2016, more than 150 of our key
operational colleagues attended a totalof 20 courses to enhance and broaden
knowledge of our standards and spreadgood practices. Keeping our contractors,
guests and colleagues safe is paramount

INFORMA PLC SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2016

Across our Academic
Publishing business, we set
ourselves a goal of delivering
35 events to support authors
in 2016. We’re pleased to say
we delivered more than 60
during the year.

Members of Team India have also
engaged with village communities
supported by Read India (our local andglobal charity) mentoring young adults
on using computers and engaging withgender issues and the barriers womenface in the community.
We can say most genuinely that greatercollaboration has been both boosting
our business and enriching our lives!

to the success of our business. When webuild and dismantle our events, we have
many people working together onsite andits key to work closely with the venues andcontractors. We have well defined healthand safety standards that are aligned towidely accepted industry standards toensure that workers are protected andthat our guests can enjoy our eventssafely. We’ll be doing more in 2017.

www.informa.com/sustainability

OUR
NEIGHBOURS
Informa colleagues are participants inmany communities around our 100+
offices. Everyone is offered up to twodays off a year to volunteer locally and we
encourage volunteering that develops new
skills for our colleagues and others. It alsobuilds teams who tend to come back to
the office feeling energised and more
proud to work at Informa.
As we have been focusing on otherprogrammes, such as Walk theWorld, the number of volunteers has
dropped for the second year running
but the numbers have been recoveringin the last quarter of 2016 after webegan evolving our programme. In
2017, we will be relaunching the
programme with a closer link tocolleagues’ learning and development
objectives, and with the aim ofbuilding stronger, longer-term
relationships between each office andits nominated Walk the World charity.

In 2017, we are looking torelaunch volunteering with afocus on where it can add
value to the business:developing skills, building
teams, partnering withothers to trial new solutions.
It’s my ambition to help every
colleague see volunteering as
a way of building their careerand every team manager
seeing it as a way ofenergising their teams.
Fiona Gibson
Communities Senior Associatewww.informa.com/sustainability

18.1%

Glynn Fullelove
Group Corporate
Services Director

PAYING FAIRTAX WHERE WE
DO BUSINESSInforma creates economic value in many
ways: we stimulate business deals, webring tens of thousands of customers
to some of our host cities, we procure
from local suppliers and we pay tax.
We view the taxes we pay as part of theeconomic benefit we create for societiesin which we operate, and believe that a fairand effective tax system is in the interestsof tax-payers and society at large. Paying
tax in our markets gives us an obvious
return as governments provide theservices that our business relies on to
be successful, now and in the future.
This includes, for example, educationfor our current and future customers,
infrastructure to allow people to accessour events, and services that makehost cities appealing.

In 2016, our effective
rate of tax on our adjusted
profits was 18.1%(2015: 17.7%).

Our key tax principles are:• Paying our taxes where we do business• Complying with, and following the spirit
not just the letter of the law in the
countries where we operate• Engaging constructively and openly
with local and national tax authorities• Following legislation and rules tobest serve our business, colleagues
and shareholders.
The graphics and table above show
the tax we paid in 2016. In 2017, we will
publish more details on our tax strategy
on our website because we recognise
the growing need to be transparent.

Our 2016 Total Tax Contribution was made up of:Worldwide

Amount paidin the UK

Corporation tax (and similar)

£43m

£24m

Employees Social Security Contributions

£30m

£17m

Net VAT income taxes and social

£12m

£(7)m

Employees income taxes and social

£98m

£44m

Total tax contribution

£183m

£77m

Tax paid

Footnote: Amounts shown are actual amounts paid in the year and does not include businessrates, air duty etc. as this is relatively immaterial.

INFORMA PLC SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2016

17

FUNDRAISING
Colleague fundraising through Informa
Ruth Janssen
Business Reporting Manager,
Business Intelligence

VOLUNTEERINGBUILT SKILLSI NEEDED FOR
MY NEW ROLE
I’m the cofounder and leader of Informa’s
Hand in Hand project which, for the last
three years, has supported the charity
Springboard for Children. They provide
one-to-one teaching for children andyoung people who struggle withlearning to read and write.
In August 2016, we launched our second
project team within Business Intelligence
Healthcare vertical. This team supports
World Cancer Research Fund, the UK’s
leading charity dedicated to researchingcancer prevention. The team identifies
specific projects that the charity needsdelivering including the development of
their focus and assisting in fundraising
activities. Both partnerships help our
members to share their knowledge,
further develop and learn new skills.
These project teams have allowed me
to grow professionally because they’ve
developed my managerial and influencing
skills. I’ve coached colleagues and run
projects and these new skills wererecognised by our divisional CEO when
I was promoted into my new role. Froma personal perspective, it’s also helpedme get to know some wonderfully
dedicated colleagues who all sharemy values and desire to help thebusiness give something back.

2014 = £160k   2015 = £193k

2016 = £71k

COMPANY CONTRIBUTIONS
Total company donations(cash and in kind)Company donations (cash)

2016: £338k

£599k
£516k

2014 = £299k 2015 = £246k£511k

Volunteer programme costs

2016: £137k
2014 = £117k 2015 = £98k
Donations of products
and services

2016: £36k
2014 = £100k 2015 = £254k

2014

2015

2016

VOLUNTEERING% of employees volunteering

The team has enabled
Springboard for Children
to have a lasting impact on
the lives of 14 pupils we
supported at St Stephen’sPrimary School (Lambeth)

11%

8%

2014 = 11%     2015 = 8%7%2016 = £71k

Tom Hill (Trusts & Foundations
Fundraiser at Springboard)

18

www.informa.com/sustainability

OUR COLLEAGUESCOLLEAGUESMAKE THE DIFFERENCE

The positive impact
Informa has through ourcontent and communities
comes entirely from thework of colleagues.

T

hey are our biggest asset
and together create a culture
which they say makescoming to work at Informa
both a pleasure and achallenge (in appropriate ratio!). Our
culture allows us to be innovative,
entrepreneurial and agile in responding toour customers’ needs, which fits our viewof ourselves as the ‘challenger’ brand in
the knowledge economy.
As we deliver the last stages of our
GAP programme, it’s important thatcolleagues have the right balance of workand training, that they’re engaged,
supported, appropriately rewarded andcontinue to develop their careers as theysee fit. The attraction and recruitment of
the right people is one of our key issues tomanage, and our focus on our colleague
value proposition in 2016 will therefore
continue into 2017.
A key area is diversity at senior levels.
We’re proud that we have a good balanceof gender across the business but we stillwant more women in senior roles. We’readdressing this by developing a women’s
network to support women at every level,
and through unconscious bias training toensure we always promote based on ability
to do the job. A positive sign is that 63%
of our promotions in 2016 were women.

OUR COLLEAGUESCONTINUED// HAVING A BREADTH OF SKILLSAND EXPERIENCES IS BOTH AN
ESSENTIAL BUSINESS NEED AND,I BELIEVE, THE ONLY RIGHT WAY
TO RUN A COMPANY. //Tom Moloney
Director of Talent andTransformation, Global Support

79%

of Colleagues said Informa
has a positive culture andwork environment

INSIDEINFORMA– HOW DO PEOPLE
FEEL ABOUTWORKING HERE?
In September 2016, we launched
InsideInforma, a Group-wide conversationthat gave everyone the chance to havetheir say about life at Informa. The aim
was to see where we are doing well andwhere we can improve to make sure
Informa is an enjoyable, rewarding andstimulating place to work. Pleasingly, 71%
of Colleagues responded and, of those,
71% said they felt engaged. Those over
45 and with more than five years’ service
were most engaged, while millennials who
have been with the business for less than
five years were least engaged. We hopethat increasing our focus on having a
positive impact on local and global issues
through our sustainability programme will
help improve engagement with this group.

42%

felt that the Group was goodat celebrating success withrewards other than money.

85%

An impressive 85% ofColleagues said they feel
confident about how theirrole makes sense in thecontext of what their teamand Division is trying
to achieve.

20

INFORMA PLC SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2016www.informa.com/sustainability

Saskia Bewley
Diversity and Inclusion
Specialist, Informa plc

DIVERSITY
AND INCLUSION
AS DRIVER OF
BUSINESS SUCCESS

Our working environment must be
welcoming and stimulating, enjoyable
and rewarding, and combine a levelof personal freedom with opportunities
to exchange views and ideas. This‘cognitive diversity’, alongside more
traditional issues such as race, genderand so on, can be what makes Informa
such a great place to work.
Our 23-person diversity and inclusion(D&I) working group aims to ensurecolleagues can be themselves, so they
can make their best contribution, no
matter where they work or who they are.

of promotions in 2016
were women

In 2016, we developed our ‘AllInforma’D&I programme. Key activities for2017 include:• launching training on ‘unconscious
bias’ to recruitment and managers

We’ve spent a lot of time this year
thinking about how a diverse workforce
can make us more successful.

• setting recommended recruitment
practices for our HR and recruitment
firms

Informa wants to attract and retain adiverse range of talent. Having a breadthof skills and experiences is both anessential business need and, I believe,
the only right way to run a company.
Diversity makes Informa an interesting
place to work, but also make us morecreative, more resilient and better able toengage with our many niche audiences.

• establishing two employee networks– Women and Young Leaders

www.informa.com/sustainability

63%• meeting the requirements of the
Gender Pay Gap Reporting legislation• examining ways in which we cangather better data on the diversityof our colleagues

INFORMA PLC SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 201621

OUR COLLEAGUESCONTINUED

17,200km
walkedRichard Menzies-Gow
Director of Investor Relations,
Informa plc£120,000
raisedWALK
THE WORLD
In 2016, the Sustainability and Corporate
Communications teams joined forces tolaunch a major new global initiative: Walk
the World. Every Informa office, as well as
all our many homeworkers, were invited
to participate by organising a walk in theirlocal area, encouraging colleagues to join
them. We raised money for charity but
the key objective was engagement andinclusivity – how many Informa colleagues
could be persuaded to join in and,collectively, how far could the Group
walk around the world? We saw thisas a great way to connect and unite
the many individual colleagues, offices
and businesses spread across the20+ countries where Informa operates
and have a lot of fun at the same time!

Each Division chose a charity linked
to their day-to-day activities, ensuringcolleagues felt a sense of purpose andrelevance. For example, our Academic
Publishing division supported READ
India, a charity that promotes literacy indeveloping countries, while Knowledge& Networking chose to work with Global
Angels, a charity that strives to transform
disadvantaged communities.
Overall, more than a third of ourcolleagues raised £120,000 by walking
17,200km in 30 walks in 12 countries– from the Great Wall of China, to Central
Park in New York, along the River Thamesin London, around historic ruins in Delhi,
besides a windmill in Holland and along
the beach in Florida. It’s the single biggest
fundraising event we’ve ever had.
Bring on Walk the World 2017!

// WE RAISED MONEYFOR CHARITY BUT THE
KEY OBJECTIVE WASENGAGEMENT AND
INCLUSIVITY... //22

INFORMA PLC SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2016www.informa.com/sustainability

www.informa.com/sustainability

INFORMA PLC SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 201623

OUR COLLEAGUESCONTINUED

So, in 2016 I led a review to refresh andsimplify our written guidance. At the heartof this is our Code of Conduct which
explains what is, and is not, acceptablebehaviour. It now contains guidance on
the most important and emerging areasof risk and regulation:
Annie Mickle
Head of Group Compliance,
Informa plc

A CODE FIT
FOR THE FUTURE

Steve Townsend
European Shared
Services Director

A common thread across all divisions andcolleagues is pride in the quality of ourcontent, information and events. I wanted
to reflect this pride in our Complianceprogramme as well. A key priority forme when I joined this year was to help
colleagues understand our expectations,and those of our stakeholders, for
acting ethically – expectations that will only
increase.

A LIVING WAGE
FOR OUR UK
COLLEAGUESI am proud to have been involved in a
project, completed this year, to ensure that
all our UK colleagues are paid the Living
Wage as a minimum. Currently the UK
is the only country to have a national
minimum Living Wage but we’ve chosen
to go a step further and pay the levelrecommended by the independent Living
Wage Foundation, which is higher than thelegal minimum. We’ve also begun to workwith some of our suppliers to encouragethem to do the same.
Paying the Living Wage is a strong signthat an organisation believes colleagues
should be fairly rewarded for theircontribution, and that they can support a
decent lifestyle. It helps the business too,because companies that offer a Living
Wage are better at keeping people, havemore applications for jobs and the staff
are happier and more engaged.

• the Modern Slavery Act• data privacy and information security• diversity and inclusion• a new whistleblowing hotline,‘Speak Up’.
To support our Code, we have introduceda Global Policy Framework, with more
specific guidance on our key risks andregulatory commitments. We launched
the Code of Conduct in early 2017 witha mandatory e-learning course, andwill incorporate it, along with our global
policies, in our compliance induction
programme to equip colleagues withthe right skills and knowledge to dotheir job. We look forward to reporting
progress next year.

The programme of informational content,
activities and competitions took place over
12 weeks making it Informa’s longest
wellbeing campaign to date. Across theworld, 700 colleagues explored the many
ways in which what we eat affects not only
our health but the world around us too.
Fiona Gibson
Communities Senior
Associate, Informa PLC

MASTERING ONE
PLANET EATING

Many offices were inspired to host theirown activities such as sustainable cooking
classes, promoting locally-grown fruit,building window gardens or even insect
tasting to help people think about foods ofthe future. The campaign really opened
people’s eyes to where their food comes
from, how it is made and how to create amore sustainable, healthier, meal.

In 2016, I teamed up with graduate-fellow,
Sarah Weir, and nutritionist, Nick Owen of“What Food?”, to deliver Informa’s firstever ‘One Planet Eating’ campaign totackle the twin issues of diet and theenvironment. We brought together two
previously separate campaigns because
we wanted people to think about theinterconnections between our
Sustainability Pillars.

This initiative will make a real difference
to colleagues, and to the business, andI’m really pleased to have seen it cometo fruition.
Our Hong Kong colleagues
join together for a sustainable
meal out

24

www.informa.com/sustainability

GENDER SPLIT*

Colleague
gender split

Management
gender split

Senior management
gender split

Directorgender split2015 = 46%
2014 = 52%

2015 = 25%
2014 = 30%

2015 = 20%
2014 = 22%2016 =
49% female

2016 =
56% female
2015 = 54%
2014 = 57%

2016 =
25% female

2016 =
20% female*Average for the year

HEADCOUNTABSENTEEISM

Average total colleagues in the year excluding Penton

2016 = 6,394
2016

Average days absence per colleague per year
2.5

2.5

2014

2015

2.2

6,394

2015

6,570

2014

6,627

TRAINING

2016

COLLEAGUE TURNOVER

Spend on training*

2016 = £2.3m
2014 = £2.3m 2015 = £1.6m

Colleague turnover
for all businesses
2014 = 22% 2015 = 24%2016 =*Recalculated and restated prior year
this year using revised definitions

www.informa.com/sustainability

16%2016 =

24%

Voluntarycolleague turnover2014 = 15% 2015 = 15%

INFORMA PLC SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2016

25

OUR ENVIRONMENTTHE KEY

ENVIRONMENTAL
As a leading specialist
media business, we create
a lot of value for a relatively
small direct environmental
impact – that impact being
carbon emissions anduse of paper in our
publications. Nonetheless,we need to do what we canto minimise our direct
impact and it has the added
benefit of saving cost.

H

owever, if we consider
the environmental impacts
outside our immediate
operations, the picture
is different and we haveactive projects to understand our impacts
and how we can have a more positive
impact in the following areas:
Emissions from our flights, andthose of our clients, when they
travel to our events
Flights made by our customers toour events can be several orders ofmagnitude larger than emissions fromflights made by our colleagues. It may
be that travelling to our events for several
meetings saves several individual flights
to separate meetings but further work isneed to understand it. We have beendeveloping methods to measure thisand expect to be able to publish our
first scope 3 footprint next year.

ISSUES

Waste arising from our events
is significantly greater than waste arisingfrom our offices. Where possible, we workwith venues and exhibitors to reduce thisand improve recycling rates, and we’reparticipating in several initiatives tounderstand these impacts better. Our
Sustainable Events Ladder, discussed
below, will be one of our key tools forcollecting, sharing and measuring goodpractices, while our collaboration with
UFI, the global association of the events
industry, is helping develop an industrywide tool for collecting sustainability datafrom venues for shows. We’ll be reportingback on this collaboration in 2017 when
we finish the first pilot with UFI.
Digital carbon footprint
We are working with the Responsible
Media Forum and several of our peers
on an industry-wide project to measure ourdigital carbon footprint – carbon emissions

from the server farms and internet
infrastructure that deliver our digital content.
As we continue to move from physicalmedia and events to online platforms,
this will become increasingly relevant.
Of course, all of this potential pales incomparison to the impact of our content
where we bring together communities
that enable others to reduce their own,
or others’, environmental impact. This
includes working in the wind turbine
industry, training in green buildings, waste
and water management etc. We consider
this to be part of our Content pillar as it’s
about the knowledge we curate.

Jim McKie
Procurement,
Business Intelligence

MORE RESPONSIBLE
PAPER AND TIMBER
SOURCING

Jo Baalham
Facilities Manager, European
Shared Service Centre

SAVING ENERGY,SAVING OUR BILLS
Environmental sustainability means
providing the best service whileconsidering the impact it has on theenvironment. We need solutions thatwill last, minimise cost and stimulate
creativity. We’ve been refurbishing theShared Service Centre office over the last
four years to make it an open, bright,
modern space. Lighting was a particularfocus and we have installed 77 solar
panels to help power the buildings
and reduce our impacts. In the firstyear alone, we reduced electricity
consumption by 32%, while 9% of ourannual usage was provided by the solar
panels. We also saved on the cost of
maintenance and repair – our teamhaven’t had to go up a ladder to change
a light bulb in a long time!
In 2016 we reduced energy usage still
further, and introduced an electricalcharging point for two cars – free tocolleagues and with guaranteed parking
spaces. It’s already being used everyday. We’ve also found a supplier to sort
through our mixed waste, recycling up
to 97% at the depot. This saved money,
took away the need for separate recycling
bins and guaranteed that whatever could
be recycled was. Colleagues’ reactions
have been really positive and I’m reallypleased to have influenced decisions in
the business. It’s amazing to have an
impact that will last for many years
to come.

// IT’S AMAZING TO HAVE AN
IMPACT THAT WILL LAST FOR
MANY YEARS TO COME. //I joined Informa in 2016 to improve how
we buy goods and services by saving
money and meeting the needs of thebusiness more effectively. One of my tasks
this year has been to look at our paper
and timber usage – we all know forests
are important ecosystems, so we mustsource sustainably. Our Academic
Publishing division was the biggest userof paper by far, and has always managed
it well, but the acquisition of Penton haschanged the balance and so I’ve beenworking with colleagues from otherdivisions to ensure our suppliers
everywhere meet these same standards.
We sourced approximately 88% of ourpaper usage in 2016 from certified
sustainable sources and we know
which suppliers we need to workwith to increase this.
In Business Intelligence, we’ve introduced
more stringent checks for new suppliers
that are designed to confirm they comply
with the policy and we actively seek to
use certified sustainable paper wherever
possible, particularly FSC or PEFC. This
helps us know that our paper supply chain
is not only environmentally sustainable,
but also that it considers human rights
as well. Other divisions have also
followed suit.
www.informa.com/sustainability

INFORMA PLC SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 201627

OUR ENVIRONMENT CONTINUEDOURENVIRONMENTALPERFORMANCE
Jane Walde
Head of Group Risk

CLIMATE CHANGE
IMPACTS OUR
BUSINESSAs a global business, Informa’s exposure
to the effects of climate change are varied
by geography and depend a lot on whichparts of the business are present in what
locations. We have more than a hundred
offices and, with events in more than 60,
we not only have a responsibility to reduce
our contribution to climate change arisingfrom our office energy usage and travel,
but we also need to consider how wemanage the risks arising from climatechange. We recognise that the impacts
from extreme weather events may
interrupt our businesses and during 2016
we ensured that we have BusinessContinuity Plans in place across the wholeGroup. Climate change is recognised as apotential cause of a major incident which
we report as a principal risk to the Group,
this risk is overseen and monitored by the
Risk Committee.

28

Ellie Steel
Sustainability Graduate Fellow,
Global Support

SUSTAINABLE
EVENTS LADDERThe Sustainable Events Ladder, launchedin 2015, is a management tool thatenables our events in Global Exhibitions
and Knowledge & Networking to analyse
their economic, social and environmental
impacts. The pilot included 10 exhibitions,eight of which completed the survey.
Those who took part felt that it was useful
to measure themselves against a ‘best inclass’ event, because they discovered
unexpected strengths in one or more
aspects of sustainability that they
could build on.
In 2016, we updated to align it moreclosely to our four Sustainability Pillars,
while retaining its original, necessary
simplicity. This included adding in morequestions on Content and Community,
particularly around how effectively an
event seeks to connect people with the
networks and knowledge they areinterested in. We also made it a planning
tool – something you can fill in during thedevelopment stages of an event so that
opportunities and strengths can be
identified before the show takes place. In
the summer, we launched a second pilot,
this time for 30+ events, which will run fora year. This will refine the tool and begin
to build up a library of good practices
that can be shared acrossour events portfolios.

INFORMA PLC SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2016

We’re pleased to see some big changes
in some of our data this year, particularly
with a fall in the number of stock write
offs by more than 66%. This is the resultof improved stock management, theintroduction of more Print on Demand,a move to digital and fewer stock
disposals from acquisitions.
Our carbon footprint
We calculate our footprint using the Green
House Gas Protocol and include all offices
where we have had colleagues working
during the year, for the period they werein the office. This includes energy use,
predominantly heating, cooling andelectricity, whether we pay the bills directlyor not. Our emissions from our owned
vehicles and air conditioning are notsignificant and we have ruled them out.
In 2016, we appointed a global travel
provider, enabling us to track air travel andtherefore calculate emissions, which we
believe will be significant compared withcarbon emissions from our offices.
We expect to be able to report theseemissions in 2017. We have also set
ourselves the target of continuing to
identify energy efficiency investments
at all offices with more than 100 people,
which represents approximately 75% of
our total office footprint in fewer than 20of our 120 offices.

www.informa.com/sustainability

RESOURCE USE

GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS

(3)
1,264
tCO e

(3)
6,620
tCO e

Scope 1:
Heating fuel2015 = 1,287 (2) tCO2e
2014 = 1,497 (2) tCO2e

Scope 2:
Electricity & Steam2015 = 7,373 tCO2e
2014 = 7,190 tCO2e27,151 tonnes
Paper usage (tonnes) 20162014 = NA(1) 2015 = NA(1)88%% paper from sustainable sources 20162014 = NA(1) 2015 = NA(1)27,884 tCO2e(3)Total scope 1 & 22015 = 8,660 (2) tCO2e
2014 = 8,687 (2) tCO2e

WASTE
Stock written off(units and tonnes to pulp)

1,744k units
1,182 tonnes

Comingin 2017
Scope 3 from our flights is being
calculated for the first time in 2017

1,135k770 tonnes

Emissions per colleague (tCO2e/colleague)

591k units
401 tonnes

2014
1.50
2015
1.32
2016
1.19

2014

2015

2016

 evised and expanded methodology in 2016. Prior year figures not readily comparable so we’ve chosen to omit them here.
RIn 2016, we updated our methodology to increase the boundaries of our GHG footprint to be more comprehensive in its coverage,
particularly around heating in buildings. We have updated prior year data to keep it comparable.
(3)
Indicates where Penton data is included for the period that we owned it in 2016.
(1)

(2)

www.informa.com/sustainability

INFORMA PLC SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2016

29

PERFORMANCE AT A GLANCEThis table lists the data we have reported in previous years
against each pillar, being the best available measures of ourinvestment into a particular issue (such as staff training) or
the output of that investment. As we develop our long-term
priorities in 2017, our aim is to evolve these KPIs to focus on
our impacts rather than our inputs, as outlined earlier.

CONTENT

Measure

2016

2015

2014

Journals with an open access option

96%

90%

91%

Number of open access journals

108

65

60

1,017k851k

715k

Proportion of book titles available
as ebooks

76%

63%

62%

Proportion of accepted academic articles
from developing countries(1)

36%

35%

34%

Measure

2016

2015

2014

ImpactTotal events to support authors

127

51

NA

FundraisingColleague fundraising through Informa

£71k

£193k

£160k

Company contributions

Company donations (Cash)

£338k

£246k

£299k

Volunteer programme costs

£137k

£98k

£117k

Donations in products and services

£36k

£254k

£100k

Total company donations (cash and in kind)

£511k

£599k

£516k

7%

8%

11%

Open Access

Number of journal downloads in Inasp
Reach

COMMUNITIESVolunteering30% of employees volunteering

INFORMA PLC SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2016www.informa.com/sustainability

COLLEAGUES

Measure

2016

2015

2014

6,394

6,570

6,627

Headcount

Average heads during the year

Gender Split

Employee gender split

56% female

54% female(4)57% female

Management gender split

49% female

46% female

52% female

Senior Management gender split

25% female

25% female

30% female

Director gender split

20% female

20% female

22% female

Employee turnover for all businesses

24%

24%

22%

Voluntary employee turnover

16%

15%

15%

£2.3m

£1.6m

£2.3m

Employee TurnoverTraining

Spend on training(5)Absenteeism

Average days absence per employee

2.2

2.5

2.5

Measure

2016

2015

2014

7,151 tonnes

NA ~NA(1) ~% from sustainable sources

88%

NA(1) ~

NA(1) ~

Stock write offs (units)591k

1,744k1,135kWeight of stock written off (tonnes to pulp)

401

1,182

770

Books available as POD (% of all titles)

74%

72%

71%

Scope 1: Fuel Oil, Gas and Car Mileage(tonnes CO2e)

1,264(3)1,287(2)1,497(2)

Scope 2: Electricity & Steam (tonnes CO 2e)6,620(3)

7,373

7,190

Total scope 1 & 2 (tonnes CO 2e)7,884(3)8,660(2)8,687(2)NANA

1.32(2)

1.50(2)ENVIRONMENT

Resource Use

Waste

Greenhouse Gas
Emissions

Paper usage (tonnes)

Scope 3 from our flights

Comingin 2017

Emissions per employee

1.19(3)(1)

Updated methodology and definitions of developing world to align with UN definitions. Therefore, we’ve restated prior year for comparability
In 2016, we updated our methodology to increase the boundaries of our GHG footprint to be more comprehensive in its coverage, particularlyaround heating in buildings. We have updated prior year data to keep it comparable.
(3)
Indicates where Penton data is included for the period that we owned it in 2016.
(4)
Gender balance for colleague gender split has been restated from 59% to 54% female for 2015 due to transposition error.
(5)
Restated all years based on updated methodology.
(1)

(2)

For more on all our data calculations, see
www.informa.com/sustainability/datamethodology

www.informa.com/sustainability

INFORMA PLC SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 201631

OUR SHARED FUTURE

WHAT NEXT

FOR 2017 & 2018?

I

nforma has many positive impacts
but we believe we can do more.
We can certainly measure andunderstand these impacts better.
We’d also like to fit our activities
within a revised common framework thatallows colleagues and other stakeholders
to see how each activity is part of awider purposeful ambition: to use our
professional skills and experience toconnect people with each other and withthe knowledge they need to tackle someof the world’s largest problems. To do this,we need to articulate our aspirations forsustainability much more clearly – not over

one or two years but over five or even ten
years, harnessing the knowledge andtalents of our colleagues. This year wetalked to around 300; next year we’ll be
involving many more.
Defining our futureand setting targets
In 2017, our Executive Management Teamwill work with a Sustainability Advisory
Panel, a diverse set of colleagues fromaround the business, to analyse our four
Sustainability Pillars and more clearly
understand what our focus should be forthe next decade. Our aim is to define what

is most important within each of thesepillars, how they deliver value to us andothers, and what specific initiatives we want
to incubate to ensure we are a sustainable
and purpose-driven company. We want to
set targets, and launch a small number ofpilots to test new approaches, products orpartnerships that could lead to long-termcommercial success. We’re also looking to
see where we can most contribute to theUN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Doing all this will deliver growth for Informa,
returns for our investors, careers forcolleagues, and help for our communities toaddress their most important challenges.

INFORMA
PLC BOARDEXECUTIVE
MANAGEMENTTEAMSTRATEGYTEAM

SUSTAINABILITYTEAM
PLANNING AND
STRATEGY

BRAND ANDCOMMS
PURPOSE &IDENITYSUSTAINABILITY ADVISORY PANEL (SAP) DRAWS FROM EACH DIVISIONACADEMIC
PUBLISHING

32

BUSINESSINTELLIGENCEINFORMA PLC SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2016

GLOBALEXHIBITIONSKNOWLEDGE &NETWORKINGGLOBALSUPPORT

www.informa.com/sustainability

The paper used in this report is produced with
FSC® mixed sources pulp which is partiallyrecyclable, biodegradable, pH Neutral, heavy
metal absence and acid free.
It is manufactured within a mill which
complies with the international environmental
ISO 14001 standard.
Consultancy, design and production
by Luminous
www.luminous.co.uk

Our registeredoffice address is:
5 Howick Place
London SW1P 1WG
t: +44 (0)20 7017 5000
e: info@informa.com
www.informa.com
For more information on oursustainability programme, or
if you’d like to get involved,
contact sustainability@
informa.com

We are proud to be members of: