RBS 2003 Annual Report Download - page 51

Awards
 “Volunteer of the Year”
The National Association for the Advancement
of Coloured People for Citizens
 “Can do Award”
Goodwill Industries for Citizens
 “Most Innovative
Working Practice”
Institute of Financial Services for RBS Workout
programme
 The Giving Campaign
recognised the achievement of
our Give As You Earn scheme
Pay MagazineÕs Payroll Giving Award for 2003
* Some examples of our community programme in the US have been included in the Citizens section of this report (pages 40 to 43).
Corporate responsibility
Annual Report and Accounts 2003
49
We have an extensive suite of policies – covering
issues such as diversity, work-life balance and
whistleblowing. Our recently revised Code of
Conduct sets exacting standards of behaviour.
Our annual employee opinion survey, carried out by
International Survey Research (ISR) has repeatedly
reported a strong performance by the Group
compared to the UK financial services sector and a
group of the world’s top performing companies. As
a result of this consistently high standard, we have
now been included in the ISR Global High
Performing Norm.
Environment
RBS continues to actively manage the impact on
the environment of its own operations with demanding
targets for reducing emissions, increasing the amount
of energy we use from renewable sources and
reducing travel and waste. We report extensively on
this in our Corporate Responsibility Report.
Suppliers
We place increasing importance on ensuring that
we work with suppliers committed to the same high
standards of environmental and corporate
responsibility (CR) as ourselves. Our key supplier
management programme embraces an increasing
range of CR issues including equal opportunities,
social accountability, health, safety and environment.
Community investment
The Group’s community investment programme is
one of the largest in Europe. Last year we
contributed £40.1 million into the communities in
which we operate.*
The programme is clearly focused on social inclusion
and education. In long-term partnerships with charities
and government we are working in areas of financial
education, inclusion, money advice, widening
access to higher education and helping excluded
young people realise their potential.
We measure our community impact by the difference
we make to people’s lives.
In 2003 in the UK:
 We helped Fairbridge and The Prince’s Trust
improve the prospects of over 40,000 of the UK’s
hardest to reach young people.
 We worked with the Inner City 100 to
demonstrate the role that enterprise can play in
revitalising inner city economies.
 We helped 135,000 pupils from our most
deprived communities to consider going on to
higher education and Face 2 Face With Finance
passed the milestone of helping 300,000 pupils to
learn about managing their money.
 We are the largest corporate supporter of
the money advice sector. Our current partnership
will see an investment of £1.8 million in the quality
of face to face money advice given through
organisations such as Citizens Advice Bureau.
Staff giving
At a community level, we believe our staff are
better placed than we are to identify the needs of
the community in which they live and work:
 For each £1 a member of staff donates to a
charity or community project, we will donate £2 and
we are the only UK based organisation which double
matches Give As You Earn on this basis.
 We also provide Community Cashback
Awards of between £100 and £1,000 to the good
causes which our staff are involved in as volunteers
or as fundraisers.
 In total £8.5 million was generated for over
6,000 good causes through our staff giving and
double matching programme.