RBS 2004 Annual Report Download - page 53

Annual Review and Summary Financial Statement 2004
Corporate
Responsibility
51
In 2004 we published our first
Corporate Responsibility Report.
While the Annual Report quantifies
our financial success, the
Corporate Responsibility Report
provides a qualitative insight
behind the figures into the policies
and practices which ensure
that our financial returns are
sustainable in the long term.
The growth of the RBS Group depends as
much on our understanding and fulfilment
of our responsibilities as on our financial skills.
The first responsibility of any company to society is
to be successful. Success requires us to balance
the differing interests of our stakeholders. We must
provide the high quality products and services our
customers want, at a price they can afford. Our
shareholders demand and deserve a healthy return
on the capital they entrust to us, which we achieve
through growth and profit. We owe our employees
stable, safe and fair employment. We must work
productively with government and regulators. We
attach importance to managing our environmental
impact and making a genuine contribution to the
communities in which we operate.
Successful companies must not only conduct their
business in a manner that goes beyond legal
compliance. They must satisfy the increasing demand
to define, implement and report the “non-financial”
elements of their business practice. We respect
the need to assure our key stakeholders that an
organisation of the scale and complexity of the RBS
Group is managed with integrity and consistency.
Our first Corporate Responsibility Report is available
from http://www.rbs.com/crreports
Supporting international principles
The Equator Principles and UN Global Compact
In 2003 we adopted the Equator Principles of
socially responsible investment and became a
signatory to the Ten Principles of the UN Global
Compact. Our work in 2004 has focused on
implementing the Equator Principles within our
business and incorporating the UN Global Compact
Principles into our policies and procedures.
Benchmarking
The Group participates in a number of corporate
responsibility indexes and surveys:
FTSE4Good
The Group continues to meet the socially
responsible investment criteria required for
inclusion in the FTSE4Good Index.
Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes
The Group has been selected as a component for
both the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index
(DJSI World) and Dow Jones STOXX Sustainability
Index (DJSI STOXX).
The Group ranked 2nd equal in the Dow Jones
Sustainability World Index for the banking sector,
bringing our overall score to 64%, an increase of
5%. Our score was 22% above the global average
for the sector.
Business in the Community
We participated in the Business in the Community
CR Index for the first time, achieving 91.5% and
ranking 27th within the top 100.
Business in the Environment
The most recent annual Business in the
Environment (BiE) FTSE 350 Index of Corporate
Environmental Engagement survey showed a
further 1% improvement on the previous year.