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Corporate Responsibility

Focused on driving progress and improving futures.

The impact we have on society and the environment is at the centre of our approach to corporate responsibility. We focus on driving progress and improving futures by acting in the most responsible way possible towards the environment and society. Whether it’s by creating a lasting positive impact in our society or embracing our own people through our commitment to inclusion, diversity and wellbeing.

United Nations Global Compact

Since 2020, Schroders has been committed to the United Nations Global Compact, the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative.

The UN Global Compact asks companies to align their operations and strategies to ten universally accepted principles. These principles represent the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which were set up to end extreme poverty, fight inequality and injustice, and protect our planet.

Since 2020, Schroders has been a signatory to the United Nations Global Compact, the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative. The UN Global Compact asks companies to align their operations and strategies to ten universally accepted principles. These principles represent the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which were set up to end extreme poverty, fight inequality and injustice, and protect our planet.

Environment

Society

Inclusion, Diversity and Wellbeing...

It’s important to us that we have as minimal an impact on the environment as possible. We are constantly looking for ways in which to do this better and more effectively, and are committed to achieving environmental excellence.

Our four main areas of environmental responsibility

We have established an effective environmental framework to help us excel in this key area.

Reduce our resource consumption, including the consumption of energy, water and other consumables, as well as reducing our waste creation and business travel.
Be transparent with our environmental impacts, sharing with stakeholders through initiatives such as CDP and UNPRI.
Prioritise renewables through The RE100 initiative and the use of 100% renewable energy by 2025.
Commitment to ensuring compliance with all local, regional and national environmental regulations.

Our commitment to protecting the environment

In 2015, global leaders in Paris agreed to an international target to limit global warming to below 2°C. Our Climate Progress Dashboard currently shows that in fact, we’re on track for temperatures to rise by closer to 4°C. This lack of progress highlights the urgent need for real action.

Change starts at home and we are changing our behaviours to make sure that we have a better impact on the environment. For more information on our Group Environment Statement, click here.

Going greener across our global offices

We now have over 60% of our employees working from buildings demonstrating excellence in sustainability.

The move to our state-of-the-art London headquarters in 2018 provided us with the opportunity to introduce a number of new environmental initiatives including:

Reducing our water consumption by using grey water toilets (which recycle basin and sink water), as well as rain harvesting for toilet flushing
Reducing our carbon footprint by recycling heat from catering fridges into our hot water system, introducing on-demand pumped hot water and connecting to a district heating network
Removing single-use plastic from our catering services

Our New York office has achieved a Leadership in Energy and Environment Design (LEED) Gold certification.

In Singapore, we have moved into our new premises in CapitaGreen in August 2015 reflecting our steady growth in the region, and brings significant environmental benefits. Technologically sophisticated and highly energy-efficient, has meant that during our first full year’s occupation of the building, we used about 51% less electricity than in the last full year at our previous offices.

Other sustainable design strategies in our new building include water-saving techniques, such as rainwater harvesting to irrigate the building’s plants. This, along with many other eco-friendly features, has helped the office tower gain platinum certification in Singapore’s Building and Construction Authority Green Mark Scheme and Gold under the local BCA Green Mark for the office interior fit-out.

100% renewable electricity globally by 2025

Committed to going net zero carbon

Schroders joined 29 other global asset managers representing more than USD 9 trillion of assets in launching the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative.

What do we include in our carbon emissions?

We use the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate standard: Electricity and gas consumption, as well as business travel (air and ground transportation)

What targets have we put in place to reduce our emissions?
1. To achieve 100% renewable electricity by 2025 (RE100 commitment)
2. To only own and occupy buildings which are Net Zero Carbon by 2030 (EP100 commitment)
3. 10% reduction in CO2 emissions at 1LWP by 2030
4. Increase our recycling figures at 1LWP to 75% by 2022
What initiatives are you working on to reduce our emissions?
1. Developing a carbon offsetting programme
2. Improving data collection
3. Reducing air travel
4. Installing environment management systems across major international locations following ISO14001 principles
What does a ‘carbon offsetting programme’ look like?

It involves reducing emissions across all activities and offsetting the carbon emissions we’re unable to remove. We will only work with the most reputable standards and we plan to invest in afforestation and forest protection projects in the UK and internationally.

Turning the tide on #PlasticPollution

At Schroders, we work hard to improve the futures of those around us and support programmes and initiatives that have lasting impact on our society.

Schroders launched ‘Schroders Giving’ in 2019 to showcase the positive impact the business is having on the communities in which we operate through strategic partnerships. Schroders Giving represents the company’s central charitable giving and develops strategic community partnerships with organisations across the globe, helping us achieve our goals by enabling greater investment into social capital and maximising the impact we can have on beneficiaries.

Supporting our local communities

Supporting our people in their own charitable efforts matters to us and is part of our strategy to be an employer of choice. We offer a number of generous matching programmes to empower people to give back, either through fundraising or donating their time. We have partnerships and issue grants to communities around the world.

Our charitable giving response to Covid-19

Driving progress and improving futures is at the heart of what we want to achieve through Schroders Giving. With the aim of helping people most affected by the pandemic, our charitable response to Covid-19 raised more than £4.3 million for almost 100 charities in four months, through our #CollectiveAction campaign.

I feel incredibly proud of what has been achieved in just four months. We will continue to provide support for our communities going forwards.

Peter Harrison

Group Chief Executive

In Australia, we supported Flourish Australia, an organisation committed to enabling Australians to flourish by strengthening mental health. Flourish delivers tailored programs to enable participants to access the support, and build the skills, they need to achieve their life goals. Read our full Impact Report for our Schroders Giving #CollectiveAction charitable response.

Improving futures with the Indigenous Reading Project

Stamping out modern slavery

Case study: Empowering our people to improve futures around the world

In 2019, we rolled out our improving futures community strategy across the globe with the objective of engaging our people to make a positive impact. We decided to launch a competition, asking our global colleagues to tell us about the charities that they thought were driving progress and improving futures in their communities.

Our judges comprised Peter Harrison, Group Chief Executive; Leonie Schroder, non-executive Director; and Sir Damon Buffini, independent non-executive Director. They chose these three winners and we are proud to support these causes, which align to our corporate focus on climate change, social impact and social mobility.

1^st Cool Earth, global

Cool Earth works alongside rainforest communities to halt deforestation and climate change. This charity shares and promotes the most effective conservation methods around the world and invests in those methods with the potential for best outcomes for people and the rainforest.

2^nd SEWA, India

SEWA has been making women in India self sufficient since the 1970s. It is made up of a network of self-employed women on low incomes, whose financial wellbeing is therefore unprotected. The charity transforms women’s lives by empowering them with leadership skills, entrepreneurship and skills training to gain full-time employment.

3^rd Beyond Social Services, Singapore

Beyond Social Services is dedicated to helping children and youths from less privileged backgrounds break away from the poverty cycle in Singapore. The charity provides guidance, care and resources that enable families and communities to keep their young people in school and out of trouble.

Creating a more inclusive culture at Schroders

Schroders’ Inclusion and Diversity agenda is managed through a combination of employee resource groups as well as country-based committees. These committees drive a number of local and global initiatives to support our commitment to being an inclusive and diverse workplace.

The Australian committee is well represented across all divisions as well as other key demographics and sponsored by the Chief Executive Officer.

In 2020, during Inclusion month we ran a series of accessible challenges to help colleagues around the world embrace and share inclusion. Our engagement opportunities ranged from digital workout training sessions, panel discussions with external leaders, to podcasts with senior colleagues and Q&A sessions.

During our most recent global inclusion month we ran a series of accessible challenges to help colleagues around the world embrace inclusion. Our engagement opportunities ranged from digital workout training sessions, panel discussions with external leaders, to podcasts with senior colleagues and Q&A sessions. Almost 600 of our colleagues joined one or more of our learning sessions and over 580 completed the inclusion digital workout, aimed to help us learn how to be more inclusive of different people. In Australia, we partnered with Curijo Pty Ltd to host an Indigenous workshop on Authentic Inclusion to better understand Aboriginal history and challenges as well as celebrate their unique culture to help our journey towards a more inclusive future. Our two internal podcasts were hosted by our Group Chief Executive and Group Chief Investment Officer on our key initiatives and our Head of Talent & Inclusion and Chair of the Schroders Black Professional Network, on exploring the role of race and representation when it comes to inclusive leadership.

The results from our 2020 Inclusion survey found:

At Schroders people are treated with Fairness and respect (84% favourable) up 2 from 2019

Sufficient effort is made to get the opinions and thinking of employees (84% favourable) up 14 from 2019

My manager supports flexible working in my team (93% favourable) up 10 from 2019

Schroders recognises and values diversity amongst its employees (86% favourable) on 2019

My team has a climate in which diverse perspectives are valued (82% favourable) on 2019

Schroders Australia is a member of Pride in Diversity, the national not-for-profit employer support program for LGBTQ+ workplace inclusion. It specialises in HR, organisational change and workplace diversity and publishes the Australian Workplace Equality Index (AWEI), Australia’s national benchmarking instrument for LGBTQ+ workplace inclusion from which Top Employers for LGBTQ+ people is determined. Their mission is to support member organisations in their pursuit of best practice LGBTQ+ inclusion and the attraction and retention of talent through the adoption of progressive inclusive policy, practice and behaviours.

Addressing the gender pay gap

We believe that society has been bound by preconceived ideas about what people can and can’t do for far too long. Factors such as gender, social backgrounds, ethnicity and ‘who you know’ have had a greater impact on the professional world than most are ready to admit.

We are going a step beyond saying that the gender pay gap is important. Find out more about our approach and reach our full Gender Pay Gap report.

Addressing gender equality and the removal of sexual harrassment

Schroders is a proud signatory of 40:40 Vision, an investor-led initiative to achieve gender balance in executive leadership across all ASX200 companies by 2030.

40:40 Vision seeks to move beyond tokenism to achieve a balance of 40% women, 40% men and 20% any gender in leadership positions, through business-oriented structural transformation, encouraging companies to set and publicly report on progress against composition targets for executive leadership.

Schroders Australia CEO, Sam Hallinan, is a signatory to the Diversity Council of Australia’s #IStandForRespect pledge to stamp out sexual harassment in the workplace. By taking this pledge, Sam publicly stated his support to stand against gendered harassment and violence in all its forms and to commit to taking steps in his organisation to address sexual and sex-based harassment, to make the workplace safer for everyone.

Schroders Australia also partners with Future IM/Pact which is an investment management industry collaboration to open up opportunities for people from diverse backgrounds, particularly women, to gain exposure to a career in investment management through events like investment competitions, virtual internship programs, round tables and early stage recruitment.

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Corporate Responsibility

Focused on driving progress and improving futures.

United Nations Global Compact

Environment

Society

Inclusion, Diversity and Wellbeing...

Environment

Our four main areas of environmental responsibility

Our commitment to protecting the environment

Going greener across our global offices

100% renewable electricity globally by 2025

Committed to going net zero carbon

Turning the tide on #PlasticPollution

Society

Supporting our local communities

Our charitable giving response to Covid-19

Improving futures with the Indigenous Reading Project

Stamping out modern slavery

Case study: Empowering our people to improve futures around the world

Inclusion, Diversity and Wellbeing

Creating a more inclusive culture at Schroders

Addressing the gender pay gap

Addressing gender equality and the removal of sexual harrassment

Plan for Nature

Contact Schroders