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Responsibility.
It’s the way we do business.
What does
it mean to be a responsible corporation? It starts with the setting of accountabilities
toward our employees, our communities, our environment – and toward the
people all of us at BMO serve: our customers.
It means creating an environment where every employee makes the right decisions
and takes the right actions, every day, where expectations are set for all
BMO employees and a promise is made about how everyone in this company can
expect to be treated.
Most important of all, it means that the common set of values we hold at BMO
allow autonomy and empower our employees to take the initiative in serving
our customers and communities. No one here needs to wait for instructions when
it comes to doing the right thing.
Our employees have the confidence
to make decisions on behalf of the organization wherever they work. This
makes our company more responsive to the many unique
needs of the diverse communities we serve. It is our employees who have led
the charge for BMO in promoting environmental sustainability and reducing our
impact on the environment. And through volunteering, donations and sponsorship
programs, we continue to invest in our neighbourhoods, towns and regions – because
we are a part of them. Our commitment to helping meet the needs of the many
organizations and groups that make our communities strong is unwavering – regardless
of the economic environment.
Corporate responsibility also means operating our business ethically, transparently
and according to the highest principles of corporate governance. Building a
culture of integrity in a world that tests businesses and their people demands
the highest governance standards.
These standards make our business
strong and enable us to succeed – an
outcome that
permits us to contribute to a vital economy and a strong resilient society.
Our approach to people, to families,
to our communities, to our environment – like
our approach to every other part of our business – is a full-time commitment.
We have yet another responsibility.
It’s to keep doing better.
In 2008, we established a new Sustainability Council made up of top leaders
from across our organization. They will lead the drive for sustainability throughout
our organization.
We made significant strides on the
environment front. We introduced a number of new initiatives, including our
BMO ECO5 Strategy, to enable us to more systematically
meet our environmental goals. We also announced our intention to achieve carbon
neutrality relative to energy and transportation emissions across our enterprise – worldwide – by
2010.
We redesigned our corporate responsibility web site to make it more informative,
useful and clear. And we began reporting on the progress we are making on our
stated corporate responsibility priorities.
Corporate responsibility is part of everything we do. It is the way we do
business. And always will be.
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