CSR: Building trust with key stakeholders in the banking and financial services sector
The UK-Cyprus Enterprise Council, in association with RCB Bank and PGD Strategy Ltd presented in London, at the Connaught Hotel in Mayfair, on the 26 January 2017, the seminar “Cyprus Banking and the financial services sector”.
Our editor Simon Pitsillides addressed the event, speaking on “CSR: Building trust with key stakeholders in the banking and financial services sector”, as stakeholder engagement is one of the main pillars of CSR/ sustainability reporting in accordance with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Guidelines.
A key question every company should ask is: Which stakeholders can hold your company back or stop it from reaching its objectives? Tweet This!
This is followed by action: identifying your company’s most important impacts on these key stakeholders (e.g. clients, suppliers, shareholders, local communities, NGOs or local government), stakeholder engagement and the process of measuring, managing and changing. Such a structured, methodical approach has many benefits:
1) The interests of your key stakeholders are aligned with the objectives of your company, by taking continuous action to remove possible obstacles to successful outcomes.
2) Through engagement and with action to address your stakeholders’ reasonable concerns and interests, trust is built with your key stakeholder groups. A solid foundation is provided for your company to succeed in the long-term by building and maintaining a favourable reputation and relationships with key stakeholders.
3) A solid foundation, for good communication with responsible CSR, is created.
Good communication is evermore important in the digital age we live in. Information is instantly and freely accessible throughout the globe and this applies to companies, too: people are able to instantly access information about your company’s policies, the impact of its activity, its reputation, with or without your consent. Whether you are aware of it or not, conversations could be taking place about your company and people take action and make choices based on what information they have available. Research by well-recognized institutions is clearly showing that responsible companies can look to the future with optimism. A CSR/Sustainability report done responsibly proves and communicates your company’s positive contribution to our world.
Other speakers at the seminar included:
- Peter Droussiotis, Chairman, UK-Cyprus Enterprise Council and Chairman, PGD Strategy Ltd
- HE Euripides Evriviades, Cyprus High Commissioner to the United Kingdom
- lgor lshchenko, Head of RCB London
- Sir Christopher Pissarides, Nobel Laureate in Economics and Regius Professor of Economics, London School of Economics
- Dmitry Chudakov, Senior Vice President, Head of Domestic Business, RCB Bank Ltd
- Over 80% of the world’s largest 250 corporations issue Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reports using GRI’s Sustainability Reporting Standards
- GRI has global strategic partnerships with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the United Nations Environment Programme and the United Nations Global Compact, with its Standards enjoying synergies with the guidance of the International Finance Corporation, the International Organization for Standardization’s ISO 26000, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and the Earth Charter Initiative
- GRI is focused on taking action on what matters where it matters: companies identify their impacts on the environment and stakeholders, measure, set targets, take action to minimize their negative impacts and increase their positive impacts, report the outcomes in their CSR report
- Under the terms of a Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2010 the UN Global Compact adopts the GRI Standards as the recommended reporting framework for companies to communicate on progress made
- GRI provides its well-recognized Standards to address the 17 Sustainable Development Goals set out by the UN. The guide “SDG Compass – The guide for business action on the SDGs”, developed by GRI, the UN Global Compact and the WBCSD, details how companies can take action to solve our world’s most pressing problems.