Man Group plc - Corporate Responsibility Report 2007

The year in brief
In our Corporate Responsibility Report last year, we set ourselves some challenging targets; here follows a brief overview of our progress over the last 12 months.

People
To develop our understanding of our people’s motivations and needs, we undertook our first ever Global Employee Survey, achieving an encouraging 75% aggregate response rate. Its findings showed that senior management is regarded very positively. A more detailed report on the survey results appears later, in the People section of this Report.

We also strengthened our people focus
in a number of related areas, including the introduction of enhanced flexible employee benefits under our ‘ManFlex’ scheme; running ‘Live Life Safe’ workshops (in association with the Suzy Lamplugh Trust) to train our employees and their families in managing risk and personal safety; and successfully integrating our new people from the acquisition of Refco.

On the systems side, we continued embedding the Group Ethical Policy, included it in the joining ‘pack’ for new recruits revised and extended our employee appraisal process and improved data gathering on the diversity of our global teams.

Finally, we implemented various Health and Safety initiatives including a dedicated intranet site; an updated policy guidance proposal; and a strengthened Health and Safety staff committee.

Marketplace
We launched pilot customer surveys in a number of European countries, with an initial focus on Man Investments’ institutional investors, in preparation for an extended programme in this area.

Leadership and governance
We believe leadership anchors performance on corporate responsibility issues. We therefore expanded membership of the Corporate Responsibility Committee, and increased accountability by establishing direct reporting lines between the Group Global Head of Corporate Responsibility and our Chairman, Deputy Chairman and to me.

Procurement
Our reputation rests in part on our business relationships and the conduct of those with whom we have dealings. During the year we: prepared a supply chain corporate responsibility questionnaire which we will be piloting next year; created a Procurement Code of Practice; and established a procurement intranet site which includes a ‘Buying Guide’.

Environment
Environmental issues might be assumed to be of limited relevance to a financial services group. We believe, however, that the potential for climate change destabilisation demands that we adopt a thought leadership position. We hope to play a part in framing and adopting appropriate and effective solutions.

The Group this year for the first time successfully offset 100% of its CO₂ emissions, using Gold Standard Certified Emission Reduction (CER) credits to achieve – and surpass – carbon-neutrality. We conducted ‘carbon workshops’ in London and Switzerland for more than 200 members of staff, conducted an employee household carbon footprint survey, and established an intranet-based carbon calculator to help staff calculate their household carbon emissions. The Group contributes 50% to any offset expense incurred by our employees in offsetting their household carbon emissions.

Data gathering and reporting
We recognise that any company’s performance on corporate responsibility can only be as good as the data by which it is monitored and managed. We have therefore set about improving our data gathering capability, particularly in view of the demands of the new regulatory climate. We proposed ‘Gold Standard’ Performance Indicators (PIs) to benchmark key risks for both corporate responsibility and Business Review purposes.

Community
Group charitable donations increased from $5.9 million to $12 million, which represented a 103% increase year-on-year and almost four times the figure for 2004-5.

Accreditation
To ensure the credibility of the data used in, and the efficacy of, our Corporate Responsibility Report and Carbon Programme, we appointed as external accreditors The Virtuous Circle Ltd, to assist us and whose accreditation certificates are included in this Report.

---