RBC bank (Canada) & sustainability - Essay Example

and 56 other countries1. Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability The company claims to have positive economic, environmental and social impact in its areas of operations. In the view of the President and CEO of the company Gordon M. Nixon corporate responsibility for the company is about the way company uses and makes money2. Company has set six priorities for its corporate social responsibility which are operational integrity, economic impact, market place, work place, environment and community.

Within the environmental priorities company is determined to reduce the intensity of the environmental footprint of RBC Canada, promote environmentally responsible business activities and offer environmental products and services3. Sustainable Growth and Priorities of RBC Canada RBC Canada has developed and adopted significant policies and procedures for the sustainable developments which are included in the corporate priorities. Some of these are as follow: Reduce the Intensity of the Environmental Footprint of RBC RBCs environmental footprint consists of range of activities of the company from the internal environment to the external environment.

Company has tracked all the areas of operations that can have environmental impact and identified the ways to minimize the environmental impact. These include use of energy, paper consumption, and water use and procurement activities. In these areas company is minimizing its environmental footprint. Vital statistics4 Greenhouse Gas Emissions The company studied and identified the direct and indirect greenhouse gas emission by the company. This includes the source of electricity, production and distribution of documents and employee travel5.

The company has Carbon Disclosure Project submission6. The key highlights of the progress of the company indicate that there are number of energy and greenhouse gas related initiatives. They launched a multi-year Energy Management Plan across the retail branch network in Canada. This consists of 200 lighting retrofits and 80 heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) efficiency assessment7. The company has drafted a comprehensive policy for their environmental and risk management policy.

As per this policy all the management decisions should be consider social and environmental risk. There have been tremendous developments in order to make this policy workable in the organization such as assessment of client’s environmental management systems, liabilities, community relations, environmental and labor regulations, community relations and the overall impact on air, land and water. They provided training to 250 employees of RBC Capital Market and Group Risk Management. These people were trained so that the new policy can be applied successfully.

In the commercial lending activities, company has been taking care in the commercial lending activities in accordance with this policy. There have been various training provided to risk managers on environmental risks and risk management in various lending and investment banking. It has also transferred many of the paper related activities through the electronic documentation process and saved nearly 11.3 million sheets of