Chief Executive's message

The title of this year's Annual Review is Towards a sustainable future. This is fitting as this year we agreed a common purpose: 'To deliver a positive and enduring impact on the world.'

Sustainability is now central to everything we do. And we believe the greatest impact we can make is in the delivery of sustainability principles through major projects around the world.

We work on a diverse range of projects across a variety of industries, yet in all of these projects we aim for outcomes that consider the economic, social and environmental impacts of both our work and our corporate footprint. And we are prepared to 'walk the talk', alongside our clients and our people.

During the year I announced a plan to cut SKM's carbon emissions by 30 per cent per capita over the next three years. This is an ambitious plan, and one that will not only challenge our daily practices but encourage us to continue to think innovatively about our own future.

To reinforce our sustainability commitment in our daily work, we appointed a Chief Sustainability Officer as a catalyst to change and key driver of a 'Sustainability Institute' for the training of our Client Managers, Sustainability Practitioners, and Project Managers.

Turning to the sustainability of our own business, SKM has experienced another tremendous year of growth, with record revenues of more than $A1 billion. Our workforce has grown to more than 6,500, 12 per cent more people than a year earlier.

While the markets we work in remain busy, we have continued the strategy adopted six years ago of focusing on our key clients, and how best we can serve them. Our four key strategies remain central to our growth and future:

Building relationships with our key clients to better understand their business and what they need.
Attracting the best people we can and developing their potential.
Changing the way we think and work so sustainability becomes part of our everyday lives.
Having the global reach to be where our clients need us, providing the required skills and technologies to deliver our services to them.

During the year, South Australian environmental consultancy REM merged with SKM, bringing top-tier skills in soil, catchment and groundwater assessment and placing SKM in a good position to become the leading groundwater practice in Australia.

Our alliance and joint-venture work produced solid results during the year, particularly our work in the United States where we signed a memorandum of understanding with environmental consultant Malcolm Pirnie Inc.

In the coming year we expect to look at further opportunities overseas, following our careful inroads into China and India in 2007-08, again following our clients.

I note there remains a global skills shortage, and developing and retaining staff continues to be an issue. This is an industry-wide problem. Our attrition rate was a very high 18 per cent, which is substantially better than the industry average.

An exciting initiative to reward and retain staff was trialled during the year, allowing staff to share in the firm's success, through a bonus scheme designed to reward great work. This was available for one-quarter of our staff during the year, and in 2008-09 expands to cover all full-time staff.

While there is some uncertainty in global financial markets, we are cautiously optimistic about the outlook, acknowledging that we need to be alert to changes and prepared to respond quickly.

I would like to thank David Howarth, who stepped down after several highly successful years as our Chairman. He provided significant guidance, for which we are grateful. In turn, I'd like to welcome back to SKM Peter Scott, who was elected Chairman in October 2007.

Finally, I would like to thank staff and clients for their involvement in what has been a very busy and successful year.

Paul Dougas
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer

We aim to cut SKM's carbon emissions by 30% per capita over the next three years.
Paul Dougas,
SKM's Chief Executive Officer