Corporate social responsibility

Supporting those who support us

Our commitment to acting with integrity is at the heart of everything we do. We embrace the social responsibilities that come with being a major employer, neighbour and partner, and we believe that conducting business in a responsible manner creates competitive advantage. It enables us to attract the best people, develop successful working relationships with customers, suppliers and governments, and support the global communities in which our employees live and work.

At the moment we’re doing everything from building engines for passenger ferries that run on liquefied natural gas to reducing noise pollution in aviation to developing energy efficient combined heat and power systems. In fact, two-thirds of our research and development every year is aimed at improving the environmental performance of our products. And over the past ten years we’ve invested £2.7 billion in new plants and infrastructure to reduce our energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Find out more in our Technology section.

Community investment is another intrinsic part of the way we do business. In 2009 alone, 5,000 of our employees devoted 60,000 hours to community-related projects.

We’ve also created a number of independent charitable trusts who use the interest generated from the endowment funds we invest in to provide important local services. Moreover, we support science education and outreach programmes to inspire the next generation of engineers and scientists. The Rolls-Royce Science Prize, for instance, awards £120,000 each year to UK schools to promote excellence in teaching and learning.