Forex

When the mosaic cladding on the
40-year old CIS Tower in Manchester
began crumbling, the
group realised that its obligation
to protect passers-by offered an
opportunity.
It spent £5.5m replacing the
cladding on three sides of the 28-
storey Co-operative Insurance
building, once Manchester’s tallest,
with 7,000 solar panels.
The tower now provides much
of its own energy requirement,
and acts as a beacon for the
group’s sustainable policies.
But the Company of the Year
Award, which CFS, the Co-operative
group, has won, reflects its
success in a wider, holistic
approach that has turned it into
one of Britain’s corporate leaders
in sustainable development.
Co-operative movements everywhere
tend to be sensitive to sustainability
issues because they
are responsible to members who,
in recent decades, have broadened
their commitment to cooperative
principles to include
ethical and sustainability agendas.
So CFS has long been a
pioneer in this field.
The group’s first ethical investment
policy was drawn up 16
years ago, and an ethical committee
now overseas where its £40bn
of assets are invested. Although
this has somet imes cost i t
business from would-be borrowers,
it is crucial to customer
confidence.
Jo Warburton, CFS sustainability
reporting and communications
manager, says client surveys
show that the group’s
sustainability policies play a key
role in its selection by a third of
customers. In other words, they
are core to its business proposition.


So CFS does not rely on its
own managers to draw up its ethical agenda – every few years it
consults its members and customers,
and will do so again this
year.
This practice has made sustainability
a key element in its
investment policy, the way it
operates its own business, the
products it develops, and to a
non-profit agenda to deliver
wider social benefits.
Its investment managers
favour companies with sound
sustainability policies, and use
their lobbying power and votes at
annual meetings to press other
groups to improve.