Experian 2007 Annual Report Download - page 39

Experian Annual Report 2007 | 37
Experian’s community investment
Cash donations from Experian $729,000
Value of employee time volunteered $157,000
Value of gifts in kind $332,000
Community management costs $222,000
Total from Experian $1,440,000
Employee fundraising $212,000
GUS Trust Donations $517,000
Total value including funding
given by others $2,169,000
Consumers – informing and empowering consumers:
During the last year, Experian had over 25 million direct
contacts with consumers. Over half of these interactions
were providing consumers with access to their data on file,
allowing them to test, challenge or amend it where
appropriate. This type of access is a key part of data
protection legislation in many countries, and we aim to
ensure that we comply fully and wholeheartedly.
However, we aim to go much further in our work with
consumers. We take very seriously the need to educate
people more widely, particularly about the credit granting
process and how to make it work for them. We play a
leadership role in national organisations with a remit for
promoting financial education, especially with the young.
Training the trainers is a special focus. In the US we have
led a national campaign to ensure personal finance skills
are taught in schools and this year gave considerable input
to a specific programme of financial education in Texas
high schools.
The Experian businesses that market directly to consumers
have extended the frequency and reach of customer
satisfaction surveys and have monitored and improved their
online accessibility.
Employment practice - being a good employer: Experian
employs more than 13,000 people in 36 countries around
the world. Recruiting, motivating and retaining the best
colleagues is an essential part of our competitive edge. To
ensure a fair and professional workplace we have a range
of employment policies covering issues such as equal
opportunities, business ethics, bullying and harassment
and whistle-blowing. This year we initiated a brand
development programme, which includes the development
of a consistent system of values and behaviours for
employees. We invest heavily in training and development,
this year delivering more online and computer based
training than in any previous point in our history.
Environmental impact - minimising our carbon footprint
and waste: Our most significant environmental impact is
the use of energy in our buildings, and the emissions of
CO2that come from it. While the amount of energy we
use relative to our size may be low, we believe that all
companies have a responsibility to play their part in
meeting the challenge of climate change. We have
measured our carbon footprint as approximately 64,000
tonnes in 2007 (the final, verified figure can be found in
our online report: www.experiancrreport.com). Our
emissions from buildings have fallen this year as our
Nottingham sites, which house more than 2,000 people,
arranged to purchase all their electricity needs from
renewable sources and our four major sites in the US
replaced inefficient heat pumps and chillers, installed
energy saving light bulbs, reduced night time temperature
controls and controlled lighting with motion detectors
and timers.
Community - social and economic regeneration: We have
a strong history of community involvement on both sides
of the Atlantic. In the last year Experian invested $1.44m
into community programmes and charitable causes and,
with the addition of funds from the GUS Trust and the
funds raised by employees, this rose to $2.169m, with a
breakdown as shown in the chart below. These funds
enabled a huge range of opportunities for Experian’s
people to make a real contribution to the life of their
local communities and often allowed the organisations
we worked with to leverage considerably more funding
from other sources.
This year saw us launch a new US-UK collaborative
project, involving seven schools from the US and UK.
Students in each school created a set of Christmas card
designs to be used by Experian, at the same time raising
funds for charity Save the Children. A spin off from the
project is an electronic pen pal scheme between the
schools, which we have facilitated via a secure
online environment.
We also define our ‘community’ more widely. As a
responsible member of the business and finance
community, we have sponsored the UK National Debtline
and the Citizens Advice service and the Money Advice
service in Scotland. In the US we support Call for Action
and the National Consumer’s League of Identity
Theft Hotline.