Corporate Responsibility
KPI: Investment in the Community
Community and Environment Strategy
Economic impact
HBOS is a significant generator of wealth across the UK. We are one of the largest payers of tax, paying £700m in tax on profit in 2007. The UK Exchequer received a total of £1.2bn in tax and National Insurance from HBOS in 2007.
HBOS invested £55.2m in communities in 2007, including financial inclusion, sports and arts for young people and the HBOS Foundation.
HBOS Foundation
The HBOS Foundation is one of the largest corporate fundraisers in the UK. HBOS donated £8m in 2007 to the Foundation, which drives volunteering and charitable work for the Group. In 2007, the Foundation donated almost £11m to charity, including contributions raised by colleagues and customers and distributed £2.8m in national and regional grants to financial literacy and money advice projects. The Foundation is funding a major new educational programme with the Sutton Trust in Yorkshire. The programme, delivered by Leeds University, aims to widen participation of under-privileged young people in higher education.
Climate change
In 2007, we launched a major new climate change strategy. We became carbon neutral in the UK. We were: the first UK bank to purchase 100% renewable energy to power our entire estate; the only bank to offset remaining emissions by purchasing 100% ‘Kyoto Compliant’ Certified Emissions Reductions; and the first financial institution in Europe to carbon label one of its products, Halifax Web Saver, showing people how much CO2 each account produces. Colleague advocacy has improved from 39% to 51% over two years. But there remains much to do to meet our 70% target by 2009. In 2008 we will launch a new strategy to manage paper use – the type we buy, how much we use and how we dispose of it.
Asset management
Insight Investment continues to integrate environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues into the standard investment process, to ensure that these issues are core to decisions. In a recent survey by FairPensions, Insight scored 83% for its work in the ethical investment sector.