Running a responsible business

Responsible behaviour, integrity, and contributing to society are integral to who we are and what we do. We continue to reinforce our purpose of building society, nationwide, with robust governance and our approach to responsible business.

Nationwide is run day-to-day by a Senior Management Team overseen by an elected Board of Directors. The Board, as part of their terms of reference, have oversight of Responsible Business. Twice a year the Board have a focused session on Responsible Business. All members of the Board are expected to consider environmental, social, and governance issues within their discussions. We train all Board members on these topics with deep-dive sessions on trends, market insight, and presentations from experts.

We've established a Responsible Business Committee to focus on:

• the social and environmental impact we have
• the way we operate
• the financial support and work opportunities we offer, and
• the people and communities we touch.

The committee is attended by senior decision-makers from across the organisation. This ensures that all responsible business activities, risks and opportunities can be managed and evolved. Items to be escalated are managed through the Senior Management Team and at Board level.

Our Responsible Business and Climate Change Risk teams are mapped into our governance structure to drive environmental, social and governance considerations throughout our Society. By having dedicated teams and governance, we can ensure both risks and opportunities are continually explored and drive engagement at all levels of our business.

As a signatory to the UN Global Compact, we are committed to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Our purpose ‐ to build society, nationwide ‐ aligns with a number of the goals.

We also regularly engage with our stakeholders to ensure we are focused and report on the things that matter most to the people we serve.

What we are doing to achieve the goals we are most aligned to:

SDG 1 No poverty

• We take positive action against homelessness.
• We actively look for ways to improve financial inclusion and support, and protect our members’ money.

SDG 10 Reduced inequalities

• We’re working to reduce economic inequality.
• We seek to ensure everyone has access to good and secure housing, finances, and work opportunities.

SDG 11 Sustainable cities and communities

• We’re building new, EPC-A community homes on our not-for-profit development, Oakfield.
• We’ve pledged that every town and city that has a branch today will still have one until at least January 2023. Find out more about our Branch Promise.

SDG 12 Responsible consumption and production

• We maintain the Carbon Trust Triple Standard.
• We work hard to reduce our environmental impact by sending no waste to landfill and, recycling our office equipment.
• We source food throughout our offices locally.

SDG 13 Climate action

• Internally, our energy use and business miles from our fleet are carbon neutral.
• Our green propositions will help members to reduce the carbon footprint of their home.

We ran a dedicated responsible business, ‘materiality assessment’ in 2019, to inform our reporting and strategy. Feedback was gathered from over 1000 stakeholders, including members, non-members, colleagues, suppliers, and investors.

During the assessment:

• We identified the environmental, social, and governance issues currently important to Nationwide, using internal workshops, external insight, and trend reports.
• Our stakeholders were asked to rank the issues and how well they felt Nationwide was responding to them.

The themes that came out of our materiality assessment as most important were:

• taking care of personal data and money
• being a force for social and environmental good in all we do
• demonstrating honesty, integrity, care and empathy.

The findings were reviewed by our Strategy, Responsible Business, Investor Relations, and External Relations teams. They’ve been used to inform the development of our Mutual Good Commitments.

When members choose Nationwide, it’s a choice that’s for the mutual good of all. We’ve made five Mutual Good Commitments because we believe that everyone:

• should have a place fit to call home
• should have confidence in managing their money
• deserves to be treated with respect.