Finance and Accounting at a Company Listed on the London Stock Exchange - Essay Example

? Finance and Accounting choose a company that is listed on the London Stock Exchange. The company should have a sustainability report Contents Introduction 3 Critical evaluation on the techniques that are used by the company to discharge its social and environmental accountability to society 3 Corporate Governance 3 Environmentally efficient operations 4 Effective ways by which the company has assured its sustainability/social reports 5 References 8 Introduction I have chosen Royal bank of Scotland (RBS) Company. RBS group is considered as one of the largest banking and financial services company in the world. It has it’s headquarter in Edinburgh, UK (RBS, 2013). The company is listed in London stock exchange and enriched with the sustainability report. The sustainable business principle for this company is to identifying and balancing the shareholder’s needs is the ultimate way towards commercial success. It includes some data like 90% relationship managers are ready to help the customers after the business has taken place, more than 95% of the employees go though the training of anti money laundering. It has funded 200 million pounds for effective carbon reduction as a corporate social responsibility. It has also provided MoneySense lesion to more than 340000 young people. It has donated 3 million pounds to those organisations which help young women and people to start their own business. It always consults with and listens to its stakeholders’ problems and shows transparency in every operation in the business. To being a good employer it provides all types of tools and support to the employees that they can do their jobs efficiently and can improve themselves continuously (RBS Group, 2012, p.3). Critical evaluation on the techniques that are used by the company to discharge its social and environmental accountability to society RBS considers sustainability as its main focus area to achieve the goals and it makes sure that any problem that has happened in the past will not happen again in future. Corporate Governance RBS has built its sustainability on a strong governance framework which gives a clear picture of the strategic development activities of the company. It has Group Sustainability Committee (GSC) which is monitored by the senior independent director Sandy Crombie. It also includes other non executive directors from all business areas. The GSC has conducted various developmental programs within the company. In the year 2012, it has reviewed the overall strategies and policies of sustainability towards social, ethical and environmental issues. In 2013 it has solved various issues regarding customer and citizenship activities. Now GSC will look after the issues and challenges of managers in resolving various sustainability and environmental issues relating to all shareholders groups (RBS Group, 2012, p.34). Environmentally efficient operations RBS has measured the progress against their targets to reduce the impact on environment. It has made firm step towards achieving all their aims by 2015-2020. It has aimed to reduce 200 million pounds costs by 2020 to achieve their environmental goals. Energy In the year 2012, RBS has reduced the energy consumption by 5.5% and they will reduce it by 15% by 2015. It has achieved this improvement by the help of their efficient energy management team. The management is continuously purchasing electricity from various new sources in UK. In 2012, 66% of the company’s electricity was from different renewable sources. Water During the year 2012, the company has reduced its water usage by 4.9% and they will reduce it by 12% by 2015. It was done by taking various initiatives in the buildings like restricting the tap flow, urinals without water. Waste The company also has a provision to recycle their wastages and has recycled 69% of the total waste in 2012. The waste management team has taken proactive measures to reach the target in UK and US. They have also improved their process of waste collection in 2012. It will reduce 15% waste disposing in landfill and it will recycle 70% of waste by 2015. Paper RBS has reduced 13% usage of papers in 2012 and moving towards achieving greener environment target. It will reduce the usage of papers by 50% by the year 2015. IT was done by shifting their services towards paperless service for customers. It has introduced statements and welcome greetings electronically as their default service. Along with these it has also started intelligent marketing processes by adopting the digital marketing strategies and automatic both-sided printing technology. By the year 2015 it will use more than 85% of its total papers which are either made from recycled material or has recognize certificate. Travel Emissions from business travelling have been reduced by 16% in 2012. Travelling by Air and Train has reduced by 33%. It has introduced other means of communication like virtual meetings to reduce its cost of operations. It has made a target to reduce 50% carbon-di-oxide emissions which occur due to business travelling. It has highlighted the benefits of travelling by train on their online websites (RBS, 2013). Thus by adopting above techniques it has fulfilled its accountability towards the environment and society. Effective ways by which the company has assured its sustainability/social reports RBS had made various priorities as the target and has made significant progress on it in 2012 to assure their sustainability and social reports. The company’s first priority was to improve its services for small and medium scale enterprises to improve their business customer relationship. It has fulfilled this priority by sharing their customer’s ambitions with 10000 staffs to visit the customers. It has delivered 90% business expertise services to its customers as after sales services. The company has another priority to increase the time of relationship managers in customer relationship businesses. 90% relationship managers in UK were gone through the Relationship Manager Programme by the Chartered Banking Institute to develop their efficiencies in customer service. The company has also provided more than 5000 ‘working with you’ to the businesses of customers in 2012. The next priority was to increase their support to the finance sector of Social Enterprise to improve the capacity of the sector. To meet this it has launched unique program called RBS Inspiring Social Enterprise. It has introduced a charity fund and approved loans of 3 million pounds in the micro finance fund. The company also had a priority in its list to wide their support towards the green economy by developing such products which are energy efficient. The company has financed 200 million pounds to reduce the carbon emissions as a measure of its energy efficiency for its customers. The next target was to internationalize the Coutts online platform for exchange of knowledge among all the entrepreneurs in the world. To meet this priority, it has introduced various knowledge sharing resources that have information regarding international market situation in which the company operates. These reports include various economic and business updates from many countries in the world. It also consists of various cultural trends that affect businesses of families. The company has another priority to improve its commitment which will help more people to start their own business. RBS has its own ‘RBS Inspiring Youth Enterprise’ which has supported more than 100000 young men and women to start their own business. It includes rebuilding the partnership with Prince’s trust to increase the investment. It will also fund to nonprofit organizations. The next priority for RBS in 2012 was to improve the livelihoods program by introducing literacy programs related to finance through the RBSFI community which will help to increase financial health among poor people in India. In the year 2012, the RBSFI reinvent its strategies to improve the selling retail bank branches in India. It has many supportive organizations which are working for 76000 families in India. These enterprises were set up through different self help groups at more than 600 villages in different parts India since 2007. RBS has also made some priorities for the future like it will improve the quality of their products and services for small and medium scale enterprises to get the help from them in business customer relationship and it will continue the support done for youth, women, society and charitable trusts. The company will maintain their position in the competitive market in UK along with developing the measures for energy efficiency techniques. It will also deliver high quality professional customer service to corporate and business organizations. It will introduce various strategic community programs which will help to generate positive social and economic impact in the environment (RBS Group, 2012, p.29). References RBS Group, 2012. Annual Report and Accounts 2012. [Pdf]. Available at: http://www.investors.rbs.com/download/pdf/Annual_Report_2012.pdf. [ Accessed on 28/12/2013]. RBS Group, 2012. Sustainability Report 2012. [Pdf]. Available at: http://admin.csrwire.com/system/report_pdfs/1292/original/RBS_Sustainability_Rpt_2012_STERLING_INSIDE.pdf. [ Accessed on 28/12/2013]. RBS, 2013. Environmentally efficient operations. [Online]. Available at: http://www.rbs.com/sustainability/citizenship-and-environmental/environmentally-efficient-operations.html. [ Accessed on 28/12/2013]. RBS, 2013. About us. [Online]. Available at: http://www.rbs.com/about.html. [ Accessed on 28/12/2013]. Ethical Coorporation, 2013. RBS Group 2012 Sustainability Report. [Online]. Available at: http://www.ethicalcorp.com/csr-reports/rbs-group-2012-sustainability-report [ Accessed on 28/12/2013]. Read More