Corporate social responsibilities

Corporate responsibility

By incorporating corporate responsibility principles into everything we do, we are building sustainable operations for the future of our business. This means that we act responsibly towards our customers, our environment, our communities and our people.

Responsible lending

It is not in our or our customers' interest to lend people more than they can afford to repay. That's why we always do credit searches before we lend, and give our customers full and relevant information before they buy. We do this so that they can make more informed decisions and take greater responsibility for their own finances.

More about our responsible banking

Developing employees

We recruit the best people, and offer them excellent training and a clear career path. We think that this increases our ability to deliver a better service to customers. So we provide the development opportunities for our people to achieve their full potential and, in turn, continue the spirit of innovation on which our reputation was built.

More about how we develop our people

Managing our impact

We're proud to be absolutely committed to minimising both the direct and indirect impact that we have on the global environment. That is why, every year, we set high targets to reduce the level of energy and natural resources that we use. Where we can’t reduce energy further we then look to off-set the carbon involved resulting in a carbon neutral operation. We also look at ways to improve our waste management systems which has resulted in a best practice Green Apple Award for waste management.

Perhaps that's why Barclays was awarded the highest accolade – Platinum status – in the 2007 and 2008, Business in the Community Corporate Responsibility Index.

More about how we manage our environment

Barclaycard in the community

We're committed to improving our community – whether that's the street just outside our window, or the world beyond.

We do this in many ways, from supporting individual employees who raise money for charity to running an entire programme, Horizons. Horizons is a pioneering scheme that helps single parents create a better future for themselves and their children.
www.yourhorizons.com

Horizons

Working together we help ‘Build a brighter future for one parent families’ by giving support and advice on money matters, providing grants towards training and education costs and helping lone parents to get back to work. We have now invested over £4m in Horizons which has supported over 140,000 lone parents and their children.
Find out more or visit www.yourhorizons.com

Looking after local communities

Community Gifts is part of Barclaycard’s commitment to support the communities where our employees live and work. It enables Barclaycard to donate money to the right organisations and projects that are delivering real and lasting benefit locally. The campaigns have enabled Barclaycard to donate over £1.2 million to more than 300 different organisations and support nearly 42,000 beneficiaries in local communities around our key sites.

Charity begins at work

We want to make it as easy as possible for our employees to get involved in fundraising, volunteering and giving. It’s their choice who, when and how to help – Barclaycard simply gives support where we can. Last year, our employees were great ambassadors for our community programmes.

More than 4000 employees were supported through fundraising and volunteering, this is around 50% of our workforce. Over £1.5 million was raised including matching fundraising pound for pound.

Over 32,300 hours of work hours were taken to volunteer in community projects around our key sites.

Becta Home Access Programme

Barclaycard is proud to be the payment service provider supporting the Home Access Programme, a government drive to increase the number of families using the internet at home. In order to support home-based learning, Barclaycard will provide the secure funds disbursement from the local authorities to families, in order to give low-income families the opportunity for development and support children’s school learning.
Find out more