Our Journey to Net Zero Emissions

Introduction

At Rentokil Initial our purpose is to Protect People and to Enhance Lives.

Every day, we set out to improve public health with safer foods and medicines, better hygiene in schools and workplaces, pest-free places to eat and, in many parts of the world, we also provide services to ensure families are protected from the many serious diseases carried by mosquitoes such as malaria, West Nile virus, yellow fever and Zika virus. Sustainability is at the heart of our business purpose as well as how we want to run our global operations.

2019 was our Safest Year

Health and Safety is the first item on our management agendas – including PLC Board and senior management meetings.

Making sure that everyone connected to our business goes home safe every day is of paramount importance to me and our senior management. Over the past five years, we have improved our safety performance to world-class standards and while we’ll never be totally satisfied until the accident rate is at zero, a 16% reduction in Lost Time Accidents in 2019 and a 26% reduction in Working Days Lost means that this was our safest ever year.

Engaging with our Workforce

Our innovations, technologies, brands and brilliant M&A capabilities are all really important to our successful performance, but ultimately we are a services company and if we do not continue to recruit, train, engage, enable, inspire, reward and recognise our people then we will not succeed.

We launched our Employer of Choice programme three years ago and it continues to make very good progress.

We know that this is a strategic lever and the most important cog in our operational ‘machine’ – as well as the right way to treat our colleagues who work so hard to deliver for our customers.

In 2019, colleagues viewed training content on our U+ platform some 1.8 million times, an increase of 41%, while around 800 pieces of new learning content (videos, courses, etc.) were created in-house covering topics such as sales, safety, technical and operational best practice and compliance.

We have created a company that, according to leading website Indeed.co.uk, is ‘Britain’s Best Workplace’ in the private sector. This independent acknowledgement of the progress we are making sends a strong signal to potential new colleagues, as well as customers and other stakeholders.

Diversity and Inclusion

Improving and promoting diversity and inclusion across Rentokil Initial is an integral part of how we run our business.

We want and need to welcome talented people from all backgrounds so that we can continue our success. It’s therefore gratifying that, according to Management Today’s survey of 250 businesses, we are ‘Britain’s Most Admired Company for Diversity and Inclusion’. While we have a number of actions and activities in place across the group to further improve diversity and inclusion, 31% of our senior managers are now female, up from 24% in 2016, we have had no gender pay gap in the UK for a third year in a row, and we were ranked 9^th in the 2019 Hampton-Alexander Board review of FTSE 100 companies, up from 32^nd in 2018 and 46^th in 2017.

Environmental Leadership

In 2019, we achieved our 5–year target to reduce our carbon emissions efficiency index by 20%. This was achieved one year ahead of target.

Our focus on becoming an industry leader in the effective management of our environmental impacts has taken several important steps forward in 2019;

• Firstly, we have set a new long-term ambition to be carbon net zero ahead of the UK Government’s 2050 target
• Secondly, we have established seven environmental work streams covering our key focus areas
• Thirdly, given that our vehicle fleet accounts for approximately 83% of our emissions, we have committed during the year to the EV100 programme (a global initiative bringing together companies to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles)
• Fourthly, we continue to innovate and enhance our range of sustainable services. Lumnia, our range of insect light traps, was awarded the prestigious Planet Mark in 2019 for carbon reduction of 62% versus traditional units

Rentokil Initial has been a member of the Dow Jones Sustainability Europe Index for 14 years and in 2019, we improved our overall performance by 7% points. We are also members of the FTSE4Good Index.

Community Relations

During 2019 we also brought our innovative thinking to community relations with the launch of Rentokil Initial Cares – our programme to use unclaimed dividends and shares to support good causes.

The fund has c.£1.25 million to support our partner charities locally and globally in line with our purpose of protecting people and enhancing lives.

Finally, in recent years, we have been one of the best performing companies in the FTSE 100 for total shareholder return. We could not have achieved this value creation without starting off by getting it right for colleagues and customers – and then proceeding on the journey with a consistent plan, highly motivated colleagues and a desire to do business THE RIGHT WAY.

I’d like to thank my colleagues across the world for the delivery of an outstanding 2019.

Andy Ransom | CEO

COVID-19 Coronavirus

At the time of writing, the world is facing the spread of the COVID-19 Coronavirus. Clearly this is a major threat to public health and the services we provide will be a vital tool to support businesses and other organisations such as schools and healthcare facilities – protecting people and enhancing lives.

Our immediate focus is on the health and safety of colleagues and customers – this is our first priority and we will do all we can to provide them with accurate information, relevant training and the best personal protection equipment available.