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Corporate Responsibility

Objectives and Achievements

Objectives 2012

Banking

  • Continue to adjust the bank’s business model to the new regulatory environment.
  • Contribute constructively to regulatory reforms and efforts to build a more robust financial system.
  • Further refine bank-wide risk review processes, tools and training to promptly identify environmental and social risks relating to potential business
    transactions.
  • Continue to foster cross-divisional collaboration through the Green Business Initiative (GBI) to share business insights and promote our offering of investment products and services that focus on sustainability themes.
  • Further integrate climate change considerations into risk assessments.
  • Continue to develop solutions in the area of microfinance to promote the responsible development of the sector, e.g. with our products and our microfinance initiative.

Society

  • Further sharpen the strategic direction of our social commitments with a focus on education and microfinance by strengthening local organizations and improving the skills of their employees to enable them to serve more end-beneficiaries.
  • Further strengthen employee engagement, in particular skills-based volunteering. Increase virtual volunteering and enhance volunteering activities and partnerships in the emerging markets.
  • Further develop more effective synergies between our clients, NGO partners, banking units and the units coordinating employee engagement to multiply the positive impacts of our activities on society.

Employer

  • Continue to implement compensation models that focus on long-term performance and align employee and shareholder interests, e.g. by deferring a significant proportion of discretionary variable incentive awards and using instruments that are subject to claw-back provisions based on certain performance criteria.
  • Further refine our performance management process based on initial experience with a strong focus on employee development.

Environment

  • Strengthen engagement on climate policy and continue to encourage employees to take active climate-related measures.
  • Implement further steps to improve our environmental performance based on our ISO 14001-certified environmental management system and take measures to meet
    our environmental goals, focusing on the main greenhouse gas drivers.

Dialogue

  • Communicate with maximum transparency while observing duties of confidentiality.
  • Engage in a dialogue to support regulatory reforms and efforts to build a more robust financial system.

Objectives & Achievements 2011

Banking

Objectives

Achievements

Continue to refine the tools used to examine sustainability-related risks in our business transactions and work on their implementation.

We completed a technical upgrade of our intranetbased risk review system and finalized our sustainability risk checklist. Employees with direct client contact and employees in control functions received training about the risks in various sectors. We updated certain sector policies (e.g. our Mining Policy). Energy efficiency and carbon intensity are now also taken into account in the case of certain oil and gas extraction and power generation transactions.

Foster cross-divisional collaboration through the Green Business Initiative (GBI), the purpose of which is to help coordinate efforts in the areas of clean energy, water and sustainable commodities.

We intensified collaboration and the exchange of information through measures including our monthly internal GBI publication that informs our different businesses and regions about relevant activities elsewhere in the bank. We have a number of transactions in the pipeline as a result of increased collaboration driven by the GBI.

Develop innovative solutions and services to link the top and the base of the wealth pyramid and continue to actively support the responsible development of the microfinance industry.

We developed our Local Currency Microfinance Note to address the strong demand for local currency financing in the microfinance sector. We also published a white paper on microfinance and several research reports on this topic.

Society

Objectives

Achievements

Sharpen the strategic direction of the three focus themes Employee Engagement, Education and Microfinance Capacity Building.

As part of our Global Education Initiative, we began a three-year program to improve the quality/relevance of education. In the school year 2011–2012, an estimated 72,000 students will benefit from improved access to and/or a better education and 12,700 teachers will be trained. With the Microfinance Capacity Building Initiative, we served 1.8 million entrepreneurs and their families in 2011 and launched a second three-year partnership cycle.

Expand the support of activities and partnerships in emerging markets.

Employee engagement increased in Brazil, China, India, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia, as well as in Eastern Europe and Russia. We entered into a new partnership in Mexico and launched our first Philanthropy Committee in Poland.

Work more closely and systematically with departments and raise awareness of volunteering opportunities that enable employees to use their competencies to add value to our partners and our communities.

We increased employee engagement by 15% in terms of the number of volunteers and level of volunteering as a result of closer collaboration with internal departments. The number of volunteers involved in our skills-based Global Citizens Program nearly doubled and we increased the number of countries where employees can go on assignment.

Further improve the Access to Quality Education programs through measures which – depending on the regions – focus on building infrastructures, providing scholarships and advancing excellent teaching in order to prepare young people for subsequent education attainment or employment.

We engaged in projects that focus on providing access to education for underprivileged children in developing countries by supporting charities in India, Laos and Cambodia in building schools, improving school facilities and providing learning materials. In the US, we launched our Teach for America volunteering project.

Employer

Objectives

Achievements

Translate Credit Suisse’s refined global HR strategy into tangible actions and behavior, fostering diversity and inclusion. Enable further development of employees through a new forward-looking approach to reviewing and managing performance. Continue to be an innovative leader in learning and development.

We introduced a new performance management approach to systematically assess employee performance based on a personal plan defined in conjunction with each employee’s line manager. The process places a strong focus on learning and development, including internal mobility.

Reinforce the understanding that every employee is an important driver of the bank’s long-term performance and that managers are accountable for proactively developing their people. Deepen our committed partnership culture by empowering leadership and collaboration at all levels and across divisions to serve our clients’ needs.

Using our enhanced performance management approach, we assessed the extent to which employees and managers live our core values, focus on development and drive overall performance. We also established a Global Leadership Council to further strengthen internal collaboration and our partnership culture in order to set an example for employees and to help them to deliver on our commitment to clients.

Simultaneously improve the assessment of talent and systematically develop into managerial and expert roles. Strengthen our presence on university campuses globally to increase the number of people we hire at entry level from schools and universities – with the mid-term goal of such talent accounting for half of the annual intake.

We continued to refine our talent development process to ensure a consistent approach to succession management. Measures include talent reviews, which encompassed 63% of our workforce in 2011. We held a range of campus events and launched a new marketing campaign to raise our profile among graduates. We also intensified recruiting efforts in key strategic markets.

Embed client skills deep in the organization.

We executed various measures to further embed client skills in areas of the business with direct client contact as well as in support areas. Measures include running a mandatory certification process for relationship managers in Private Banking.

Environment

Objectives

Achievements

Continue to engage in the climate change debate and to explore the potential impacts of climate change on our business while also building awareness for climate issues.

We participated in the economiesuisse climate campaign and cleantech study.

Raise awareness for biodiversity risks and opportunities, also in connection with the International Year of Forests (2011).

We extended our Forestry Policy to include agribusiness issues. We also organized events to educate our employees about the importance of forests and biodiversity.

Implement further improvement measures based on our ISO 14001-certified environmental management system – with a special focus on reducing our greenhouse gas emissions.

Our E-Maximo energy and resource management tool, which facilitates the definition of efficiency targets for individual buildings and illustrates the potential of specific operational enhancements and energy-related investments, was further developed and tested.

Dialogue

Objectives

Achievements

Continue dialogue and engagement with important stakeholders to recognize global trends as early as possible and to jointly work on solutions through our involvement in networks and initiatives as well as through selected publications.

We are positioned as a knowledgeable and respected partner in discussions on finance industry reforms. Through the successful placement of Buffer Capital Notes, we took an important step toward meeting the stricter capital rules resulting from the “Too Big to Fail” issue.

Further increase dialogue with NGOs and IGOs and continue implementation of partnerships with selected organizations.

We strengthened our cooperation with various organizations worldwide, e.g. Earthwatch. We also engaged in an ongoing dialogue with NGOs and IGOs in all our regions, e.g. Berne Declaration, Greenpeace, the UN Global Compact and UNEP FI.

 

We contributed constructively to efforts to find a solution to regularize foreign assets in Switzerland.

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