Corporate Responsibility Summary Report
Introduction
As with last year we will be publishing a separate and more detailed
Corporate Responsibility Report, which will be released prior to the
Annual General Meeting. This section of the Annual Report is therefore
a condensed summary of the full report.
We define Corporate Responsibility as follows: “To commit to and evidence, where possible our high standards of business behaviours both corporate and individual, which underpin the reputation of our Group and which create and maintain trust in and loyalty to our Group by all of our stakeholders”.
In the financial services industry, trust is an essential prerequisite, in our specialised segment of the industry, in which we are market leaders, trust is absolutely fundamental in maintaining long standing customer relationships, establishing new ones and deepening our relationships with our stakeholder base – the loyalty of our stakeholders has to be earned.
By thoughtful interaction and engagement to ensure that we understand what is expected of us so that we can respond, adapt and change in line with stakeholder needs.
Our Board’s overriding leadership focus is therefore, on our people for it is they who are trusted with that most critical of assets, our reputation.
Our core principles which are articulated in our Global Ethics Policy, form the foundations of our Corporate Responsibility Programme and are imbued into our Company.
Corporate Responsibility is therefore an essential element in our business proposition in that it sets out the standards in the key reputation areas which we believe are appropriate and necessary in meeting the needs of all of our stakeholders.
Summary of the core Corporate Responsibility
elements
Our risk-based approach to Corporate Responsibility has proven invaluable
in giving our Board and senior management a clearer picture of where
we must focus to maintain the trust and commitment of our people, shareholders
and stakeholders. Identifying and prioritising areas of business risk
and defining indicators by which to monitor and manage them, has also
helped us develop clear programmes of stakeholder engagement including,
for example, global employee and customer surveys and workshops on personnel
safety, climate change and philanthropy.
The Companies Act 2006
Later this year the Companies Act will introduce enhanced requirements.
The current law requires the directors to report on key business activities
including employees and environment matters. Under the new Act these
requirements are extended to the reputation imperatives of Corporate
Responsibility. We are confident that our existing strategic approach
aligns well with the new requirements.
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In last year’s report we described in some detail each of the elements
traditionally considered core to Corporate Responsibility. This year
we have shifted focus slightly concentrating on areas of particular
relevance given the nature and scale of our global business. These areas
include:
- our people
- leadership and governance
- customers
- communities and philanthropy
- the environment
Leadership and Governance
Clear leadership is regarded as a critical factor in embedding responsible
behaviour throughout the organisation. Our CR Committee, which reports
to the Group Board, is led by our Group Chairman, Harvey McGrath, with
membership including our Deputy Chairman, Stanley Fink, our CEO, Peter
Clarke, the Heads of the businesses and Corporate areas. We believe
this level of accountability sends a clear and powerful message as to
the seriousness with which we view CR in our business
Our complete CR programme, along with our carbon neutral initiative will be externally accredited by The Virtuous Circle Limited and their full report and accreditation will appear in our CR Report.
Our people
To develop our understanding of the motivations and needs of our employees,
we launched our global employee survey. Employees were asked to respond
to a series of questions about their own position, their departments
and the Group overall. The statements asked for a response graded from
strongly agree to strongly disagree. There was also the ability to add
written comments. The survey received a response rate of 75% with many
employees writing an additional commentary. The survey results were
very encouraging and indicated a very strong alignment to the strategic
objectives of the Group and to the inclusive and entrepreneurial culture
of the Company.
During the year we introduced an enhanced employee benefits scheme – ManFlex, and added more flexibility to align to the changing needs of our employees.
Live Life Save workshops in association with the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, to train our employees and their families in managing risk and personal safety.
Customers
We launched pilot customer surveys in a number of countries, with an
initial focus on Man Investments’ institutional investors, in preparation
for an extended programme of work in this area.
Procurement
Our reputation rests in part on our business relationships, and how
the vendors and suppliers on whom we depend conduct their business.
During the year we introduced a supply chain Corporate Responsibility
questionnaire, implemented a procurement Code of Practice, and are developing
a procurement intranet site with a ‘Buying Guide’.
Environment
We consider that the potentially destabilising effect of issues such
as climate change requires us to adopt a thought leadership position
to encourage our industry to play its part in framing appropriate solutions.
The Group this year for the first time successfully offset 100% of its CO2 emissions, using Gold Standard Certified Emission Reduction credits to achieve – and surpass – carbon neutrality. We conducted ‘carbon workshops’ in London and Pfäffikon for more than 200 members of staff, conducted an employee global household carbon footprint survey, and established an intranet-based carbon calculator to provide energy saving tips and help staff calculate household carbon emissions – with 50% Group subsidy to any offset expenses incurred.
Data gathering and reporting
The Group recognises that any firm’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 to meet the needs of the new regulatory disclosure. During
the year we established procedures to allow the capture of data and
analysis processes: introducing greater granularity of data, increasing
our ability to report in more detail on all facets of our operations,
and identifying Key Performance Indicators to benchmark key risks for
both Corporate Responsibility and Business Review purposes.
Community
Group charitable donations increased from $5.9 million to $12.0 million
year-on-year, the majority of which was donated to the Man Group plc
Charitable Trust. A formula for determining charitable giving was introduced
last year and applied for the first time in the financial year ended
31 March 2007. On a pre-tax basis, the amount of charitable giving is
determined as follows:
- 2.5% of Asset Management’s net performance fee income; plus
- 0.25% of Asset Management’s net management fee income; plus
- 0.25% of Brokerage’s net income.
The minimum charitable giving in any year is guaranteed to be no less than 0.5% of Group pre-tax profits.
Staff matching and GAYE schemes continued this year and details of these and our community activity will be included in our detailed Corporate Responsibility Report.
Accreditation
To ensure the credibility of the data used in and the efficacy of our
Corporate Responsibility Report and Carbon Programme, we appointed external
accreditors for the first time.
Key themes and strategy
Our strategy will remain to build on the strong foundations of our continuously
developing Corporate Responsibility Programme.
A key challenge will be to continue to embed Corporate Responsibility ever deeper into the fabric of our business as we move on to, and through, the separation of Man Financial, providing our key stakeholders with clear evidence of the ways it adds value to our business and to our relationships with them.
We will focus ever more closely on areas identified as presenting the greatest potential risk to the sustainability of our company and its businesses: our people, our customers, corporate governance and the environment. These are also areas where business opportunities lie and where the analysis generated by the Corporate Responsibility Programme can help the Board better understand the potential for growing the business.
The approach of the Group has been to quantify its Corporate Responsibility activities to assure and increase the credibility of its programme. With the onset of statutory non-financial reporting, we acknowledge our duty to develop methodologies which will ensure that the data we report in the Business Review is accurate and robust. This needs to be the case not only opposite the regulator, but also key stakeholders – particularly our investors, who need assurance that our activities are beyond reproach and our analysis and conclusions robust. We have a wealth of data to draw on as we continue to develop our thinking, particularly in the area of business materiality, developing, for example, relevant KPIs for future reporting purposes.
This approach, we believe, both assures further sustainable progress and keeps faith with the core values of Man Group, which have guided our behaviour and helped drive our success for over 200 years (see Figures 41, 42, 43, 44, 45 and 46).