Barclays 2004 Annual Report Download - page 15

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Barclays PLC Annual Report 2004
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Other highlights were that we:
•pledged £5m to support the work of the Mandela Trust and
Legacy Organisations;
•completed the rollout of our HIV/Aids Health and Wellbeing
programme for employees and their families across our African
operations including in South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe,
Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Ghana;
•provided basic banking through our Cash Card account to over
300,000 UK customers under our programme to tackle
financial inclusion;
•made more than £1bn of new loan commitments to Housing
Associations for the regeneration of social housing;
•extended our application of the Equator Principles to project
finance transactions below US$50m as part of our commitment
to the environment and responsible lending;
•saw over 25,000 employees and pensioners worldwide take part
in Barclays-supported fundraising and volunteering activities;
•received ISO 14001 certification for Barclays in Spain.
Accountability
We report our progress on corporate responsibility issues in a variety
of ways: through meetings with shareholders, politicians and NGOs;
through ethical index and corporate governance questionnaires;
through presentations at conferences and, primarily, through our
annual Corporate Responsibility Report available in print and online.
Supporting credit unions
We provide funding for the Association of British Credit Unions
Limited to pilot the PEARLS system with selected UK credit
unions. PEARLS is a financial monitoring and business-planning
tool developed by the World Council of Credit Unions. In 2004
we published a report on the trial. It concluded that PEARLS
was invaluable in helping credit unions grow, serve their
customers better and therefore play a key role in tackling
financial exclusion. As a direct result of the success of the pilot,
Barclays agreed to fund the rollout of PEARLS to a further
11 credit unions.
Tackling HIV/Aids in Africa and the Middle East
In Africa and the Middle East, we have developed a pioneering
Health and Wellbeing programme to help prevent the spread of
HIV/Aids and to give employees who have the disease the option
of receiving first-class treatment.
Through the programme, in 2004 we funded the provision of
anti-retroviral drugs to all HIV-positive employees and up to
three registered dependants per employee in all countries in
Africa and the Middle East in which we operate. To help educate
employees, we produced an online HIV/Aids training course.
And in the community, we funded projects including the first
after-school centre for Aids orphans in South Africa, and
supported non-governmental organisations such as Voluntary
Services Overseas in their work with those impacted by HIV/Aids.
Managing the impact of our lending
Some of our most significant social influences come through
the provision of finance to businesses or development projects.
We work with our larger corporate clients worldwide, alongside
external specialists, to ensure projects we finance meet
international environmental and social standards including the
Equator Principles, which provide a framework for financial
institutions to manage environmental and social dimensions of
project financing. The Principles were drafted by four banks,
including Barclays, and launched in 2003. At the end of 2004,
27 financial institutions had adopted the Principles, accounting
for over 80% of cross-border project finance.