We know how important it is to recognize and respect customer values – and to embody them in our own values and the way we do business.

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.