Man Group plc - Corporate Responsibility Report 2007

“We believe Man Group can play a significant
role in helping transform the carbon market
from a cottage industry to one with real
institutional appeal.”

Stanley Fink, Deputy Chairman

Business alignment of our environmental and Carbon Programme

Our approach
Our environmental and Carbon Programmes range from the purely philanthropic/altruistic to the fully commercially integrated.

Historically the reporting and management of environmental impacts has been the preserve of heavy industrial and manufacturing companies, whose environmental impacts are palpable. Recent years, however, have seen increasing awareness of the environmental impacts of even service sector businesses, particularly in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, waste production and water consumption. Many companies previously considered ‘clean’ have therefore begun reporting on their environmental impacts.

“Minimising and managing the Group’s impact on the environment is, simply, the right thing to do. ”

Until recently, any such reporting – indeed, environmental policies of any kind – has largely been voluntary. But increasing pressure in the context of overall corporate responsibility and the Business Review requirements of the Companies Act has seen increasing pressure on all companies to become more proactive and more transparent in both policies and reporting.

This pressure has come not only from national, European and international authorities but, in the case of publicly quoted companies, from shareholders. Morley Fund Management in the UK, have gone on record with a clear statement of intent: “We will vote against the resolution to adopt the report and accounts of any FTSE100 company that does not report on its environmental performance.”

Further pressure has come from the public at large. According to MORI, (a UK opinion research company), the proportion of the UK population viewing the environment as ‘the most important issue facing Britain’ rose over just two years from 5% to 19%, from 2005 to 2007. A recent NOP (the NOP Research Group is one of Europe’s largest opinion research companies) poll shows 85% of UK consumers are ‘aware of climate change’.

Numerous indices have been developed such as FTSE4Good, the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes and Business in the Environment Index, offering independent external measures by which stakeholders may judge the extent to which companies comply with defined standards of practice.

Corporate responsibility is about ‘doing the right thing’. Our high level corporate responsibility strategy encapsulates this philosophy in that the Group:
“Commits to and evidences, where possible, business behaviours, both corporate and individual, which create and maintain trust and loyalty to and underpin the reputation of the Group by all of its stakeholders.”

Environmental concerns constitute an important element of this, regardless of regulatory and other pressures. Minimising and managing the Group’s impact on the environment is, simply, the right thing to do. An explicit corporate responsibility policy plays an important part in raising employee awareness of the need to make best use of scarce resources in achieving our business objectives. As a further incentive, an effective environmental programme can also offer tangible cost savings and increased efficiency.

We are, for all these reasons, committed to measuring, reducing and offsetting our impacts through a robust system of management of activities with environmental impacts: the use of resources such as energy, paper and water, all forms of waste, and emissions of greenhouse gases. Purchasing is also a factor, and we, like many others, now progressively seek evidence of effective environmental engagement from those who wish to do business with us.

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