Our approach
VisionFor Yell, Governance and Responsibility is about providing our shareholders and other stakeholders with confidence that Yell is a well-managed and responsible company.
This vision reflects our commitment both to our shareholders and to the wider community of stakeholders which includes our users and advertisers, suppliers, communities and our people.
Guiding principles
Supporting our governance and responsibility vision are our Guiding Principles - Excellence, Reliability, Responsibility and Integrity.
Excellence At Yell we have a culture of continuous improvement. We have leading brands and aim to provide high quality products and services in the most efficient and effective way.
Reliability We pride ourselves in meeting targets and expectations. We aim to give confidence to our shareholders through relevant and timely communications. We provide advertisers with a wide choice of reliable products and services and our users with timely access to comprehensive, relevant information.
Responsibility Yell is accountable to all its stakeholders. We operate in a clear and transparent fashion and take responsibility for all our actions.
Integrity We aim to operate with the highest ethical standards in all our activities. We have respect for each other and for all our stakeholders. Trust, honesty and integrity are key values across our business.
Governance and Responsibility framework
Our Governance and Responsibility framework consists of the following elements:
Element |  | Sub-elements |
| The Yell Way | | Culture Roles, responsibilities and accountabilities Business Excellence |
| Baseline compliance | | Laws and regulations Market regulation |
| Risk management | | Internal control and audit Assurance |
| Responsibility | | Environment Suppliers/ partners Yell people Customers Investors Community |
| Brand integrity | | Reputation and brand management Intellectual property Fair selling |
| Accountability and openness | | Reporting Stakeholder dialogue Investor relations Internal communication |
We use this framework to set and monitor governance and responsibility objectives, identify improvement opportunities and ensure that activities are aligned with business strategy.
How we manage Governance and Responsibility
The Governance and Responsibility Steering Group manages our overall approach to CR through the continuous review of our performance and presents CR information to the Board throughout the year. Our CEO has overall responsibility at Board level.
We report on Governance and Responsibility in a variety of ways including our Annual Report and Corporate Responsibility Reports. Go to the Annual & Interim reports page or go to the CR Reports & presentations page.
Review
We verify our information through internal and external assessments In the UK, these include external compliance reviews against key quality standards, benchmarking of our community programmes by the London Benchmarking Group, and our triennial Investors in People assessment.
Recognition
We share best practice with other organisations and in the UK we are members of Business in the Community, the London Benchmarking Group, the Corporate Responsibility Group and the Media CSR Forum.
In 2008 we were included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for the fourth year running and the Global 100 list of the world’s most sustainable businesses for a second time. We are also included in the FTSE4Good index.
Stakeholder Engagement
We frequently ask our stakeholders for their views on our management of CR. We meet regularly with our key suppliers and hold Supplier Forums to share ideas. We also survey our people in the UK and US once a year to gather feedback on our CR programmes. All our research findings have been used in the development of our new strategy for 2009.
