Barclays Bank CSR

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Introduction

Barclays Corporate Social Report centres on community support, growth contribution and carrying out business using sound principles. The company focuses on improving its customers lives as well as the well being of its communities.

CSR Summary

Growth contribution is one of the key areas that Barclays addresses in its corporate social report. The need to establish a strong and viable business, which creates job opportunities and participates in corporate citizenship, perpetuates this aspect. One way of achieving these gaols is through direct economic contribution (Idowu & Filho, 2008).

The company employs approximately one hundred and forty seven thousand, five hundred employees; these individuals come from over fifty countries. Additionally, in 2010, the company paid approximately 6.1 billion pounds in taxes. The company also supports growth through individual and business support.

It recognises that individuals need help to acquire loans, so the company responds by giving families mortgages. Besides this, Barclays also partners with businesses in order to facilitate job creation and boost economic growth. In this area of the CSR, the Bank also invests in the future through education, healthcare and social housing.

It accomplishes this through partnerships with the social housing sector in the United Kingdom. The organisation also contributes to growth through clean technologies and carbon solutions. One of the ways, that the corporation achieves this is through clean technology initiatives. It also engages in emissions trading.

Climate change is another key area in the Barclays corporate social report. The organisation first deals with its own environmental impact before tackling others impacts. Barclays has launched a Climate Action Program that focuses on three key goals. The first one is the management of the companys carbon footprint and the reduction of its absolute carbon emissions. The second goal is the development of services and products to facilitate a low carbon economy.

The third one is the management of risks linked to its clients; operations and its own activities. In addition to the Climate Action Program, Barclays also has a carbon offsetting initiative. In this area, the company buys carbon credits to neutralise its carbon emissions. It has also implemented environmental management systems in all its respective branches. Lastly, Barclays works hand in hand with different kinds of partners.

Some of them include Solar Aid, WWF as well as Barclays International Challenge. The organisation believes that certain daily operations can alter its carbon footprint. Therefore, the bank has made a commitment to reductions in travel emissions, and reductions in transport (Barclays Bank Plc, 2011a).

The organisations CSR also centres on community investment as a key area of concern. It believes in dedicating its time, skills and financial resources to support its communities. In the previous year, Barclays invested approximately 55.3 million pounds in community programmes.

Audits indicate that approximately 62,118 employees participated in these programmes. Together, they touched about one point five million people. In this segment, Barclays invests on sports, young people and future innovations. The firm often ensures that it aligns its investments with sound community changes in order to create a significant impact. Furthermore, the company requires its employees to engage in certain programs that support community causes.

In this regard, it has established a fundraising programme, volunteering opportunities and days that allow employees to make a difference in the lives of other people in the community. A similar night program also exists. Furthermore, the organisation has an Awards initiative that recognises the most useful employees in their company. It also encourages staff members to contribute regularly towards tangible community causes.

Barclays believes that the manner in which it does business has a tremendous effect on its image as well as it corporate social obligations. As a result, the company has clearly defined business principles. Barclays achieves this through customer service improvements; customer engagements are key success indicators. Furthermore, the organisation meets its citizenship obligations through implementation of environmental and social impacts.

The company ensures that its key resource (Human resource) can deliver on its corporate responsibility commitments by investing on its employees through corporate responsibility training. Furthermore, the bank works together with key stakeholders, such as shareholders, customers, businesses, and government bodies, in aid oriented and profit oriented industries to serve them well. It is only through stakeholder engagement that the company can address the needs of the people that it serves (Idowu, 2004).

Lastly, the companys CSR also acknowledges the need for diversity in its organisation. Barclays is an equal opportunity employer. It does not discriminate against applicants or employees on the basis of their race, gender, social background, sexual orientation or disability. Furthermore, the company believes that by harnessing the power of diversity in its institution, then it can reap the benefits of multiple perspectives in business.

How the company deals with climate change and the extent to which the company addresses these concerns

Since climate change is such a wide area, Barclays selected only some key areas in its corporate social report so as to harness its potential for causing change; one of this is a climate action program. Three priorities govern this program; carbon footprint management, service and product development and climate change risk management.

The firm has a target to reduce carbon emissions by four percent in 2013, in its carbon footprint management goal. The company collects and analyses its environmental data on a continual basis to achieve this. Barclays collaborates with external auditors such as Ernst and Young to increase the validity of this data.

However, there is room for improvement in this area. The company is yet to meet its targets. It must, therefore, increase its robustness in that sector. Service and product development help to transition businesses and people to low carbon use. This issue relates to consumers who have ideas that relate to carbon reduction. If a business or entrepreneur seeks financing for such an investment opportunity, Barclays will provide that individual with unique risk management and financial solutions.

This means that Barclays is contributing towards lower carbon use in its environments through a corporate outlook. The bank has done fairly well in this area because its treatment of such entrepreneurs is quite commendable. However, it must also realise that unless potential partners know about the companys offering, then it will not realise this goal as soon as it would like.

Reductions of emission from buildings are a priority area for the company. The company has made a lot of progress in South Africa and the United Kingdom to illustrate its commitment to this goal. First, the bank has innovative technology in green buildings. It started by constructing pilot plants in five branches, in 2008. Here, the organisation instated a device that perfects power use. In 2009, the Bank added nine more branches in the initiative.

Each participating site led to 13% reductions in energy use. Therefore, the organisation saved approximately thirty thousand pounds in those branches. The firm plans on adding thirty branches to the project by the end of 2011. This is a step in the right direction. The South African Absa Capital manifests Barclays commitment to reduction of carbon emissions in buildings. Absa Capital is a green building in South Africa. It is one of the most environmentally friendly structures in that country.

The building has highly efficient lighting; it possesses motion detectors to minimise wastage. Furthermore, it utilises solar water heating and harvests rainwater in its grounds. Estimates indicate that the complex has achieved a 34.2% decrease in energy use. These actions are quite positive; however, the institution must try to replicate such an initiative in different branches, as well. The returns on investment are quite clear.

South Africa is a backbone in this development because of its Energy centre. The company generates electricity through the use of gas and is in Johannesburg. Its intention is to power 8 buildings; estimates indicate that the organisation will save 19,000 tonnes worth of carbon dioxide emissions.

Emission reduction through technology use is another method that the company employs in saving energy use. The banking industrys backbone is information technology. The firm has dense servers that manage its data centres. These servers contribute to the technology problem by emitting excessive heat. They also use up a lot of energy. Introduction of green data centres demonstrates Barclays commitment towards carbon emission reduction.

These centres focus on using less power and space, using low polluting sources and still let the corporation meet its business needs efficiently. In one of the companys data centres, the organisation has an ice-based cooling system that has contributed to a 10 per cent reduction in carbon emissions or minimisation of 600 tonnes worth of carbon dioxide. In fact, environmental organisations such as leadership in Energy and Environmental design gave the company awards for these initiatives.

The Bank does not just focus on the UK; it has put up programs in the United States and Singapore so as to achieve reductions in technology emissions too. In the US, the company has 4 data centres that have minimised energy use by approximately 4.4%. Furthermore, Singapores data centre has a 37% reduction in energy use after instalment of data centre coolers. The bank realises that several personal computers consume a lot of energy.

When employees forget to switch them off in the evenings, then this increases energy use and carbon emissions. In the UK, the bank has instated a night-watchman technical system that automatically switches off personal computers when they are idle. Analyses indicate that this approach has saved 10 % of the companys energy.

Lastly, the organisation has a system in Spain which uses the same technology. However, the bank is yet to do assessments of its cost effectiveness because the system was only recently launched (Barclays Bank Plc, 2011b).

Reduction of emissions in car, air and road travels exemplifies Barclays commitment to carbon reductions. In air travel, the firm has a project dubbed Icarus that it designed to develop best practice environmental management. The initiative aims at establishing baseline carbon emissions for this mode of travel.

It also focuses on emission measurement and strategy management. The establishment has an objective of minimising carbon emissions per traveller by 2.11 percent. In order to accomplish this, Barclays has introduced virtual meetings. Video conferencing is getting popular in the institution. It has the latest technologies for conferencing in four key UK locations. Furthermore, the organisation has built a video conferencing network for its international staff.

Approximately 10,000 staff members communicate with one another through this platform. The firm bought hybrid cars that use modest fuel and have batteries that are rechargeable to reduce carbon emissions from car trips. Such an initiative is yet to reach other branches, but this is a step in the right direction. Lastly, Barclays has a Bike2Work initiative, where employees get to ride company sponsored bikes to work in order to lessen carbon emissions (Barclays Bank Plc, 2011a).

Lastly, the organisation has a carbon offsetting scheme in place. It buys carbon credits in order to counterbalance its footprints. Offsetting works well for the organisation because it assists in financing environmentally friendly projects. In one scenario, the organisation purchased carbon credits from a company in Brazil.

Through this effort, the establishment supported job creation and environmental sustainability attempts in that country. The firm has also invested in other nations like South Korea, India, China, Kenya and Tanzania through carbon credit purchases. As of 2010, Barclays contributed towards 1,191,956 credits.

Conclusion

The Barclays Bank Corporate Social Report is indicative of an organisation that is not afraid to walk the talk. Barclays has clear and straight forward corporate social responsibility goals and has used creative methods to meet them. Its various projects and initiatives testify to this commitment.

References

Barclays Bank Plc. (2011a). Barclays Annual CSR report. Retrieved from https://home.barclays/investor-relations/reports-and-events/annual-reports/?pageid=96

Barclays Bank Plc. (2011b). Citizenship. Retrieved from http://www.ethicalperformance.com

Idowu, S. (2004). A comparative study of the contents of corporate social responsibility reports of UK companies. Management of Environmental Quality, 4(15), 420-437.

Idowu, S. & Filho, W. (2008). Global practices of corporate social responsibility. London: Springer.

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