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98
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.