Barclays 2010 Annual Report Download - page 26

Citizenship
Our role is to help improve the lives
of our customers. We must provide
mortgages, allow businesses to invest
and create jobs, protect savings, pay tax,
be a good neighbour in the community
while also generating positive economic
returns for our investors
Bob Diamond, Chief Executive
Our key areas of focus are contributing to growth and supporting
our communities. Underpinning these is a foundation of sound
business principles and practice that ensures integrity in the way
we do business.
Our Group Executive Committee is responsible for our overall citizenship
strategy, and supports the Chief Executive in its implementation. This
Committee, along with the Board, uses a robust reporting framework
to review progress.
Contributing to growth
We employ nearly 150,000 people around the world. In 2010, 2,000 new
jobs were created and 1,200 graduates were hired in the UK, bringing
the total employed in the UK to 65,000. Our global tax contributions
amounted to £6.1bn, including £2.8bn paid on behalf of our employees.
In addition, we paid more than £8.7bn to suppliers in 37 countries.
In 2010, Barclays provided £43bn of gross new lending in the UK including
£7.5bn from the acquisition of Standard Life Bank and assisted more than
106,000 business start-ups, an increase of 12% over 2009. In South Africa,
Absa’s Enterprise Development Centres helped almost 5,000 new
businesses to start up in 2010.
In 2010, four out of five Barclays UK business lending
application were approved
We’re helping our customers, clients and other stakeholders invest in ways
that contribute to growth tomorrow. We are providing financing solutions
to private and public sector clients, facilitating investment in infrastructure,
development and the low carbon economy.
Supporting our communities
In 2010, we committed over £55m to community programmes across 37
countries. Our programmes are driven by the passion and energy of 62,118
colleagues around the world, who volunteered their time or took part in
fundraising and regular giving. These efforts benefitted 1.5 million people
and supported more than 8,000 organisations.
In the last five years, Barclays employees have volunteered
over one million hours in their local communities and raised
more than £75m through our matched fundraising scheme
Barclays Climate Action Programme 2011-2015 is our direct response
to issues concerning the environment and climate change. We are
focusing on the areas where we have the greatest potential to make
a difference, including:
– Managing our carbon footprint – including a commitment to reduce
absolute carbon emissions by 4% by 2013 and creating an African
Carbon Fund to supply seed capital to carbon mitigation projects
in Africa
– Developing products and services to help enable the transition to
a low-carbon economy – including financing and risk-management
solutions to enable capital to flow to lower carbon opportunities
– Managing climate change risks – including collaborating with other
stakeholders to manage the risks of climate change to our operations,
our clients and to society at large.
Citizenship
Contributing to growth
– Direct contribution,
employment and economic
value added
– Supporting growth today:
customers and clients
– Investing in tomorrow
Supporting our communities
– Supporting social
infrastructure
– Increasing access to financial
services
– Investing in the community
– Building a diverse workforce
– Managing our environmental
footprint
The way we do business
24 Barclays PLC Annual Report 2010 www.barclays.com/annualreport10