Burdens are pleased to be shortlisted as a finalist in the 2012 Peer Awards for Excellence in the ‘Social Responsibility - Community’ category.
The Peer Awards for Excellence celebrate accomplishments of real people making an impact at work and across the community. Sponsored by The Independent newspaper, the scheme award’s businesses consistently demonstrating high standards of corporate governance, social responsibility and employee engagement.
Burdens, a distributer of products for the construction industry, are challenging the role of business within society with its model that combines ownership between employees and a charitable foundation.
This co-ownership model involves share ownership for everyone employed within the business, with Burdens Charitable Foundation ( BCF ) also owning shares. In effect both employees and society, through the grant making activities of the foundation, benefit from the ongoing success of the business.
Burdens’ ownership model involves two different classes of share. One gives voting rights and hence controls the ownership of the business. These shares are of fixed value and pay a dividend that provides the income stream for the charitable foundation and hence, ongoing support back into society. The other class of shares can however increase in value in line with the growth of the business and are particularly for the benefit of the people currently working for the Company, and is their incentive to add value to the organisation.
Today, over 96% of our people are shareholders. On leaving the business, the employee must sell their shares back to the Company, with the increase in share value being the reward for their contribution. Shares are then available for any new people joining the Company to whom the baton is passed with the challenge of further developing our organisation.
This co-ownership model provides a structure that will both protect the independence of the business and motivate the people of the day to create long term and sustainable growth.
Burdens Charitable Foundation, unlike many foundations of equivalent size, has chosen not to employ marketing organisations or fund raisers, preferring instead that all of its income goes to selected causes. The most recent example is ‘La Renaissance’, a project to build and run initially one school to provide education for orphaned, abandoned and disabled (visually impaired) children in Burkina Faso, West Africa, one of the poorest countries in the world.
Another highlight in this area of the company’s activity came in 1997 when £30,000 was raised through Burdens employees completing the Three Peaks Walk. With Burdens Charitable Foundation, the major shareholder in the Company, contributing a further £45,000, an extremely valuable £75,000 was raised towards the outright purchase of a breast scanner for Frenchay Hospital in Bristol.
Corporate Development Director, Kevin Hancock commented, "BCF has contributed many millions of pounds to charitable causes at home and overseas, an amazing achievement and something that we're all very proud of."
The winners will be announced at the Peer Awards Conference in October, 2012.
For more information on BCF and our co-ownership model, visit www.burdens.co.uk/about-us and for 2012 Peer Awards for Excellence finalists, http://thepeerawards.com/the-peer-awards/shortlist
For more information, please contact:
Julian Jenkins, Marketing Support, on +44 (0)117 301 4902 or Julian.Jenkins@wtbgroup.com
