RBS 2005 Annual Report Download - page 49

2005
Corporate
Responsibility
47
There is a strong business
case for building the trust of
stakeholders, and we can do
this by demonstrating that we
understand our responsibilities
and operate with integrity.
Below are some of our activities
in 2005.
Financial inclusion
 We have 800,000 basic bank account
holders, an increase of 20% over 2004.
 We have more than one-third of the basic
bank accounts accessible through Post Offices.
 Our 15 mobile banks bring banking services
to 300 rural communities each week in the UK.
 In 2005 the Group’s small business lending
in the 5% most deprived wards in the UK stood at
£659 million.
Equator Principles
 During 2005, we contributed to the revision
of the Equator Principles to take account of the
International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) revised
performance standards.
Our people
 We were awarded the Gold standard in
Race for Opportunity, positioning us sixth overall.
 In 2005 we launched ‘The Leadership
Journey’, a Group-wide approach to developing
leadership skills.
 86% of employees across the Group
participated in our 2005 Employee Opinion Survey.
The Group scored above the Global Financial
Services Norm in every category. 84% of
respondents believe that the Group is socially
responsible in the community.
The environment
 In 2005 66.9% of the Group’s electricity in
the UK and Ireland came from renewable sources,
one of the highest percentages in the Financial
Services sector.
 The Group’s new Edinburgh headquarters
at Gogarburn has received a number of awards for
environmental best practice, including BREEAM
“Excellent” and ISO 14001.
 In December 2005, the Group switched to
recycled paper for office use in the UK and Ireland.
Benchmarking and Indexes
The Group continues to meet the socially
responsible investment criteria required for
inclusion in the FTSE4Good Index.
The Group ranked 4th in the Dow Jones
Sustainability World Index for the banking sector,
bringing our overall score to 76%, an increase
of 12%. Our score was 28% above the global
average for the sector.
Our 2004 Corporate Responsibility Report ranked
14th amongst the 100 largest global companies in
the 2005 Fortune 100 CR performance assessment.
This placed the Group second amongst the 25
Financial Service sector companies.
Key statistics
£368.3 billion loaned to our
customers
In the UK we are the sixth
largest employer in the FTSE
100 paying £4.9 billion to our
employees in salaries
£2.7 billion paid to the UK
Exchequer
£2.0 billion paid to our
shareholders in dividends
£7.5 billion paid to suppliers
634 million free UK ATM
transactions, dispensing
£39.5 billion