Governance

Corporate social responsibility

Bradford & Bingley has continued to develop its Corporate Social Responsibility ('CSR') programme during 2007, with particular focus on improving our environmental performance.

Bradford & Bingley became a CarbonNeutral® company on 1 January 2007, offsetting all our carbon dioxide ('CO₂') emissions.

In addition to offsetting, we have worked hard to reduce our total level of emissions and the Company now has a carbon footprint of under 0.5 tonnes of CO₂ per employee.

Bradford & Bingley believes in placing CSR at the heart of our business activities. We aim to conduct our business in a socially responsible manner in respect of the environment, staff, customers, shareholders and local communities.

We continue to structure our CSR reporting along the FORGE framework for CSR Management and Reporting for the Financial Services Sector. The FORGE Group is a consortium of financial institutions and involves the British Bankers' Association and the Association of British Insurers (reference - www.abi.org.uk/forge). Our CSR report follows the four major themes identified by FORGE as being those most relevant to financial services organisations - Marketplace, Workplace, Community and Environment.

Our CSR report, which is published separately, was independently verified by Bureau Veritas.

Bradford & Bingley has published a stand alone CSR report since 2003 and each year we have responded to feedback on the previous year's report by including more information on Key Performance Indicators ('KPIs') and targets for our CSR programme.

Bradford & Bingley is a national member of Business in the Community ('BITC'), and the London Benchmarking Group.

Bradford & Bingley continues to be a member of the FTSE4Good Index of socially responsible companies and participates in the BITC Corporate Responsibility Index. In 2007 Bradford & Bingley was proud to be named as one of the top 100 'Companies That Count' in the Corporate Responsibility Index.

Bradford & Bingley was awarded Gold status in the BITC Corporate Responsibility Index and was awarded Platinum status in the BITC Community Index and BITC Environment Index, the highest grade possible.

We were also proud to be awarded a BITC Silver Big Tick for our ten year partnership with Shelter, and a BITC Big Tick in the EDF Energy Environmental Leadership Award category.

Ian Anderson, Group HR Director, took over executive responsibility for the Group's CSR programme in 2007.