Annual Report 2017

Rothschild & Co | Annual Report 2017

Corporate Social Responsibility

1 Group Corporate Social

Responsibility policy

In this report, Rothschild & Co or the Group refers equally to Rothschild &

Co and the Rothschild & Co group.

Over the years, Rothschild & Co has been gradually developing and

implementing policies designed to take environmental and social issues

into greater account in its businesses, and circulating these among its

employees and stakeholders. Given the Group’s structure, the initiatives are

usually locally taken. However, they are guided by a common set of values

on which Rothschild & Co’s internal operations, relations with stakeholders

and investment decisions are based.

Social and environmental information has become an integral part of the

Group’s reporting practice.

These matters are governed by a number of committees including a Group

Environment, Health & Safety Committee, which was established during

the 2016/2017 financial year, a Global Community Investment Committee

established during the 2017 financial year, a Community Investment

Committee (in the United Kingdom) and a Diversity Committee (in the

United Kingdom).

Rothschild & Co monitors the policies and activities of these committees,

on a consolidated basis.

Rothschild & Co is strongly committed to taking into account and managing

the impact of its activities on society and the environment. However, as

Rothschild & Co is the parent company of a group carrying out banking and

financial activities, the disclosure of some of the information listed in article

R. 225-105-1 of the French Commercial Code is not relevant. Explanations

are provided where information has been excluded.

In accordance with the provisions of article L. 225-102-1 of the French

Commercial Code which provides that Corporate Social Responsibility

(“CSR”) information disclosed in this report must be verified by an

independent third party, Rothschild & Co’s Managing Partner has appointed

KPMG SA as independent third party. The report from KPMG SA on this

report is presented on pages 114 and onwards.

2 Methodology

2.1 Reporting procedure

Coordination of the CSR reporting procedure is conducted at Rothschild &

Co level by members of the Group’s functions in charge of Human

Resources, Environment and Community Investment, External Reporting,

Property and Corporate Services, Legal and Company Secretariat (the

“CSR Working Group”).

The CSR Working Group has met on a periodic basis to set the scope

of the reporting, to organise the collection of the relevant information

for the 2017 financial year and consolidate the indicators included in

the reporting campaign.

In the absence of recognised reporting standards on corporate social

responsibility that are relevant to its activities, Rothschild & Co has defined

for the Group its own reporting procedures based on best practice and on

information required by the legal provisions, which have been consolidated

in the Rothschild & Co CSR Reporting Guidelines.

These guidelines are updated on an annual basis taking into consideration

the CSR objectives fixed for the financial year and are set out in a formal

framework incorporating the human resources, environmental and

community components, and provide a methodology for all those involved

in preparing the CSR information to be included in this report. These

guidelines have been updated by the CSR Working Group for the 2017

financial year, then reviewed and validated by Rothschild & Co to

incorporate changes affecting the Group or the performance indicators

from last year.

2.2 Reporting scope

Given the Group’s organisation, for the 2017 financial year, the scope of

the reporting does not include all of its entities for some of the required

information.

In addition, the Martin Maurel group entities acquired as a result of the

merger between Rothschild & Co and Compagnie Financière Martin Maurel

effective as from 2 January 2017 are not taken into account in the CSR

Report for the financial year 2017

(1)

For the financial year 2017, Rothschild & Co provided the corporate social

responsibility information, with the overall objective of an enhanced

qualitative approach and an improved verification process based on

the following:

•

completeness

: Rothschild & Co strives to provide the most

comprehensive information possible, notably by including indicators

covering the most significant consolidated entities; and

•

materiality

: the published information is significant and representative

of the Group’s business. Rothschild & Co’s performance data is

presented within the social, economic and environmental context,

taking into account the challenges facing the Group.

In consideration of the above, the reporting scope has been defined

as follows:

• Human Resources information:

–– regarding labour information, all fully consolidated entities within

Rothschild & Co (excluding joint ventures) are included in the

report boundary;

–– regarding training information, only the four major office locations

(London, New York, Paris and Zurich) are included in the report

boundary, representing approximately 70% of the Group headcount,

with quantitative information provided for London (which includes

training organised in London for individuals from the office locations

across the United Kingdom and the world) and Paris only. As far as

the training hours are concerned, the reporting scope is limited to

France.

–– regarding Health & Safety information, 15 office locations are

included in the reporting boundary: Brussels, Frankfurt, Geneva,

Guernsey, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, London, Madrid, Milan,

Mumbai, New York, Paris, Singapore, Sydney and Zurich,

representing approximately 97% of the Group’s headcount.

• Environmental information: 15 office locations are included in the

reporting boundary: Brussels, Frankfurt, Geneva, Guernsey, Hong Kong,

Johannesburg, London, Madrid, Milan, Mumbai, New York, Paris,

Singapore, Sydney and Zurich, representing approximately 97% of

the Group’s headcount.

• Corporate social information: all fully consolidated entities within

Rothschild & Co (excluding joint ventures) are included in the report

boundary, except for information on community investment which

focuses on offices participating in the programme implemented

within the Group.

(1) The Martin Maurel headcount represents 13.6% of the total Group headcount as at 31 December 2017.

From an HR perspective, Rothschild & Co will integrate the former Martin Maurel group entities in the CSR Report for the next financial year.

From an environmental perspective, Rothschild & Co will introduce in the CSR Report for the next financial year, five new office locations, which are the next largest offices (based on full-time equivalent

(FTE) headcount) and are likely to include Marseille, Lyon, Grenoble, which were the main offices of the former Martin Maurel group.