Corporate Responsibility in Union Bank
The starting point and the concept behind Corporate Responsibility strategy is that the firm's operations, in addition to making profits for the shareholders, can and should benefit the stakeholders - employees, community and environment. In other words, in its commercial strategic planning, a firm also takes into account the needs of the stakeholders.
Corporate Responsibility refers to the managerial and fiscal considerations of commercial organizations in five main areas:
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Community Involvement - responsibility for the community within which the business operates and from which it draws its customers and employees;
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Environmental Issues;
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Ethical Issues - responsibility for norms and values in commercial practices and maintaining a high level of ethics and morality; responsibility to customers and fair, trustworthy marketing;
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Corporate Governance - responsibility to the Board of Directors and the shareholders principally through internal procedures and supervision;
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The work environment - responsibility to employees and the work environment at the personal, physical and procedural levels.
In the past, Corporate Responsibility in Israel was identified largely with the involvement of the firm and its employees in the community, mainly through donations to and voluntary work with social organizations. In recent years there has been a pronounced increase in responsibility for the environment in which we live.
MAALA Corporate Social Responsibility Ranking
The MAALA Corporate Social Responsibility Ranking is in its fifth year of ranking public and private companies and companies traded on foreign stock exchanges. The ranking includes only companies included in the "Tel-Aviv 100" Index and companies with an annual turnover exceeding $100 million. The Ranking covers five main areas of Corporate Social Responsibility: the environment, business ethics, the working environment and human rights, community involvement and corporate governance. There are three levels of ranking: platinum, gold and silver.
In the course of 2008, Union Bank's management decided to participate in the MAALA CSR Ranking. By joining this enterprise, the Bank adopted its social, environmental and ethical values as part of its commercial approach.
Community Involvement
Everyone at Union Bank - employees, management, and the board of directors - is committed to community involvement. Their activities range from financial donations to volunteer work, and they promote and carry out social activities, primarily among special-needs populations and the weaker groups within Israeli society.
The board of directors and the management have established regulations and procedures that govern the bank's donations to various organizations working in the areas of social activities, community, education, and health. Our community involvement activities focus primarily on the holiday seasons, when employees collaborate with various voluntary organizations that distribute packages to the needy.
Environmental Responsibility in Union Bank
The Bank places great importance on the preservation of the environment and invests effort and resources to promote the subject through reduced consumption, recycling, saving energy, preferring "green" products etc.
Union Bank's Ethical Code
An ethical plan consists of two central parts:
First, a Code of Ethics, which is the qualitative law of the organization, and which contains a set of values and rules of conduct derived from these values.
Second, an organizational assimilation program which included the strengthening of awareness of the law and the ethical rules amongst the members of the organization.
During 2009 Union Bank formulated a comprehensive Code of Ethics, with the cooperation of its employees and a wide range of stakeholders including suppliers, customers and directors.
The five values chosen as the components of the Bank's Code of Ethics are:
The Management and employees of the Bank regard the assimilation of the Code of Ethics by the various departments and its adoption as part of the working routine and organizational culture as being of the utmost importance.
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