Corporate responsibility

Experian’s aim is to make the business more sustainable from a social, ethical and environmental (SEE) perspective. The Group developed a framework of six key responsibilities in 2007 and a core strategy followed in 2008, strongly linked to elements of the wider business strategy.

Strategy

Experian’s particular focus

Strategic progress in CR and links with business strategy

CR contributing to the wider business goals

Supporting key resources

Priorities for the coming year

Business as usual:

Focusing the community programme:

Big Ideas:

People

Data

Technology

Embedding CR

Supporting social and environmental innovation

Focusing the community programme


Our six responsibilities



Data	Use and protect data properly, respecting all the relevant laws, helping evolve industry guidelines and new legislation, and ensuring a culture of compliance with the highest standards of integrity.	Marketplace


Products and services	Create social and economic benefit through our products, services and capabilities, balancing commercial benefit with consumers’ rights and needs.


Consumers	Inform and empower consumers, and ensure that those who interact directly with our company receive fair and honest treatment.



Being a good employer	Be a good employer to all, establishing a set of expected behaviours and values, aiming to ensure that everyone working for us is treated fairly and given the maximum opportunity to fulfil their potential, and ensuring that all our workplaces are safe and healthy.	Workplace



Minimising impacts on the environment	Minimise as far as possible the environmental impacts associated with our business and enable employee participation, with a particular concentration on the reduction of energy use and its effect on global warming.	Environment



Playing an active part in communities	Play an active part in social and economic regeneration in our communities, be they local, national or global.	Community

The CR strategy has three strands:

Further embed CR principles into normal business processes, taking account of the potential social benefits and risks, and the impact on climate change.

Create a focused approach for major projects, funded with central monies, but retain local flexibility for regional funds to encourage employee engagement.

Use CR to provide a catalyst for entrepreneurial ‘big ideas’; products or services that can have a major social or environmental impact.

The following provides a review of progress against both strategic objectives and the six specific responsibilities. It also demonstrates how consideration of social, ethical and environmental issues is contributing to key resources and core business goals. It shows the direction Experian’s corporate responsibility programme is taking and gives an insight into the CR vision and strategy for the year ending March 2010.

Experian’s framework for reporting follows the well-recognised pattern of responsibilities to the marketplace, workplace, environment and community. The Group considers its marketplace responsibilities to be particularly material and so includes within these its consideration of consumers, its responsibility to develop products and services with a strong social benefit and, most importantly, its good stewardship of data. Being a good employer is vital since people are a key resource and this is linked to good relationships with local communities. Strong environmental management is seen as an essential means of controlling cost and engaging employees, so is increasingly factored into decisions.

The table here shows what the Group set out to achieve this year in each key area of responsibility and the progress made.


	Progress in 2009

	Objective		Status

	Data – further embed CR in data evaluation processes and record and report developments through the year		Achieved


	Products and services – further embed CR in product development processes and ensure PR announcements always consider consumer benefits		Achieved


	Consumers – create some global standards for reporting consumer satisfaction consistently		Partly achieved


	Workplace – gain the explicit endorsement of HR leaders to the UN Global Compact		Partly achieved


	Environment – gather data from all major locations and put a system in place to gather data and report developments through the year		Achieved


	Community – create a global standard Community Involvement policy and increase levels of employee volunteering		Achieved

This is only the second full year of development for the CR programme at Experian, but the aim is for it to become second nature in the way the Group conducts business, considering the longer-term nature of its decisions and its impact on society and the

Achieving this is a lengthy process, but during the year there were specific achievements against the goals set for each strand of the strategy.

Experian’s vision of becoming a necessary part of every major consumer economy in the world necessitates growth and, in the economic climate of the last two years, sustainability is being seen as an important element in the profitability of this growth.

Growth brings risks as well as opportunities and the CR agenda addresses these from a SEE perspective, helping Experian to consider the longer term and the reaction of society to its decisions.

In the last two years, Experian’s aim has been to: “Increase global reach by expanding its global network and extending its existing capabilities into new geographic and vertical markets”.

As part of this growth the EMEA/Asia Pacific region has seen considerable expansion. To parallel this, Experian has extended the reach of its CR reporting of non-financial data to include China, Australia, South Africa and most of its smaller European offices for the first time this year.

There is strong commitment from regional management: in EMEA the senior management team have all been requested to include a CR-focused objective in their personal goals for the next fiscal year. In Asia Pacific CR has recently been used as a subject for discussion with employees across the region and the senior management have supported a bid for central funds for a community project in China.

A further element of Experian’s growth strategy is to: “Innovate to stay ahead by promoting its culture of innovation and investing in new data sources and enhanced analytics”.

The fund Experian provides for ‘Big Ideas’ through its central CR budget helps promote innovation to address social concerns – either by creating a new product or using a current product in a new way. Last year the fund supported an innovative development in microfinance and this year funds were allocated to the development of two products in new fields. One will support companies wanting to understand their position on employee diversity and plan actions to address any imbalance. The other will provide a means of engaging employees in managing their own carbon footprint. It is intended that both become commercially available in 2010.


	Community investment 2009
		US$ ‘000s

	Financial donations from Experian subsidiaries	1,012
	Employee time volunteered	353
	Gifts in kind	222
	Management costs	185
	Funds from Experian plc	937
	Total from Experian	2,709
	% of Benchmark PBT	0.32%

	Employee fundraising	466
	GUS Charitable Trust donations	423
	Total value of all giving	3,598
	% of Benchmark PBT	0.43%

The three resources that Experian considers fundamental to its business are people, data and technology and all three feature in the CR responsibilities.

The people Experian employs need to believe in the way the Group is being managed, and social and ethical issues are top of mind. ‘Doing it Right’ is one of four behaviours expected and measured globally through a standard appraisal system. This year the Group has taken steps towards formally signing up to the UN Global Compact, ensuring policies and processes are aligned with Human Rights best practice.

Despite Group cost efficiency measures, which included some redundancies, the engagement score, measured by the global people survey, improved by 3%. Loyalty is being encouraged partly through a further commitment to volunteering, exemplified by the UK’s ‘Inspire’ management development programme and the community involvement embedded in this, together with developments such as the ‘Experian Gift’, which allows each UK and Ireland employee three days per year in business time for volunteering and has led to the hours donated almost doubling. Community donations from Experian have increased this year with central funds supporting regional projects to help support the projects employees believe to be important.

Careful and secure data management is also being influenced by considerations for society. Data security is part of Experian’s culture, but the Group seeks continual improvement and has increased the resilience of its Information Security programme through a consistent approach in its practices and a reduction of complexity. Internal assessment programmes have been standardised across each region to further facilitate global reporting and tracking of potential issues. Experian continues to cover a wide area of risk analysis and routinely reviews activities by its resellers, vendors, clients, internal processes and new business initiatives.

Investment in technology is ongoing but cost efficiencies are important. A major consideration in every technology procurement process now is not only the price tag but also the ecological performance of new hardware for data centres. Experian is also working to understand the approach its suppliers are taking to environmental impacts and has launched a survey on its corporate website for suppliers and other stakeholders.

Looking ahead, while challenges remain in the external environment, Experian’s focus is on investment to drive future growth. Continuing and improving the Group’s ability to see social, ethical and environmental risks and opportunities is an essential part of this growth strategy.

A vision has been defined and endorsed by the board. Objectives have been set under the three strands of the CR strategy to achieve this vision:

By 2011 further embed SEE risks in the risk process and ensure each business unit is addressing them in their risk register.
Express SEE risks and opportunities, challenges and achievements more explicitly and communicate these to all employees.

Build SEE opportunity reviews into product development processes in at least one region by the year ending 31 March 2010.
Continue to provide funding for ‘Big Ideas’ and publicise the programme internally.

Business as usual - embedding CR

Achievements

Embedding considerations of SEE risks into standard processes supports Experian’s investment in its key resources, specifically
– data resources and the technology to manage them;
– people and their continued loyalty.

Further evolve understanding of CR across the Group and embed CR into decision-making processes

Regional teams established in two new regions, with all regions now engaged
Stakeholder engagement with clients, suppliers, employees and key external agencies
Where not already captured, SEE risks are being built into risk registers

Evolve the community focus to include an element of sustainability for communities and spend at least 75% of central funds available for community projects on this focus.

Experian’s full CR report can be found online at www.experiancrreport.com and a printed summary can also be downloaded from this site.


	Experian’s CR vision has been endorsed by the board.

	–	Experian’s working population understands the social, ethical and environmental risks associated with the business and standard processes take account of these on a day-to-day basis enabling the Group to create a stronger and more sustainable business model.
	–	The opportunities social, ethical and environmental issues present are regularly reviewed and Experian considers how it can help other organisations become more sustainable with new products and services.
	–	Experian uses its skills, information and expertise to best effect in interactions with its communities and helps them become more self sustaining.