CHANGING TOMORROW’S STORY FY15 Citizenship report CHANGING TOMORROW’S STORY FY15 Citizenship report Welcome to our fifth annual citizenship report. As we have 01 From Our CEO learned through our global citizenship program, corporate social responsibility is a journey with an ever-evolving 02 From Our Corporate Responsibility Director landscape. Fiscal year 2015 marked an important point in 04 Fiscal Year 2015 Citizenship Performance our journey of Changing Tomorrow’s Story by focusing on citizenship issues across our key stakeholders. 06 Our People About Edelman 13 Our Communities Edelman is a leading global communications marketing firm, with more than 5,500 employees in 65 cities world- 27 Our Clients wide. Edelman partners with many of the world’s largest 31 Living Our Values and emerging businesses and organizations, helping them evolve, promote and protect their brands and reputations. 32 Engaging our Stakeholder 33 Material Aspects 34 Appendix A: GRI G4 Content Index About this report We are a registered Organizational Stakeholder of GRI and support the mission of GRI to empower decision makers everywhere, through 43 Appendix B: GHG Emissions Reporting Methodology our sustainability standards and multi-stakeholder network, to take & Environmental Metrics action towards a more sustainable economy and world. 45 Appendix C: Global Emissions & Carbon Intensity 46 Appendix D: Stakeholder Engagement All amounts in this report are expressed in US Dollars. EDELMAN 2015 CITIZENSHIP REPORT > CHANGING TOMORROW’S STORY Table of Contents From Our CEO GRI DISCLOSURE COVERED: G4-1 WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO CHANGE AN ORGANIZATION? We are pleased to share our progress by Dan’s founding principles, including against our citizenship goals. Over the past entrepreneurship, independence and that year we have introduced some new ideas everyone is an account executive. which we believe help evolve our firm and Our values are at the center of our culture. reinforce our commitment to citizenship. They act as principles for evaluating These include introducing a new C-score as a course of action to reach a desired a way to track and measure the individual outcome. Over the past 12 months, we have Citizenship achievements of each office, and undergone a process to review our current launching new employee networking groups values to ensure that they are relevant to as part of our diversity strategy. our future direction, create a client-centric Richard Edelman The world is vastly different today than it culture and inspire great client work. As a President and CEO of Edelman was when my father, Dan Edelman, founded result we captured our existing six values this company in 1952. In today’s world into three, easy to remember dynamic of unprecedented complexity, a business statements centered on excellence, cannot stay successful simply by doing curiosity and courage. things the same way. As a result, we are I am proud to lead a firm that has a continued Edelman has been a changing our own story by evolving our commitment to citizenship and would like to “ participant in the firm and the category in which we operate thank all our employees for their passion in United Nations Global from public relations to Communications ensuring that Edelman can remain to be a Edelman has been a participant in Compact since March 2001. Marketing. We believe that in today’s force for good in the community. the United Nations Global Com- environment, companies and their brands pactI am since proud March to 2001. pledge I am proud must earn, not demand, the attention of their to Edelman’spledge Edelman’s continued continued audiences and that top-down, image-drive supportsupport to theto theCompact Compact and its marketing must move to a model that is led principles.and its principles.” by the earned mindset of communications. Richard Edelman I am proud to lead Richard Edelman Part of our evolution is a continued a firm that has a commitment to citizenship, which remains continued commitment core to our culture as a firm. Over the to citizenship. more than 60-year history of the firm, our culture has evolved but we are still driven EDELMAN 2015 CITIZENSHIP REPORT > CHANGING TOMORROW’S STORY From Our CEO 1 From Our Corporate Responsibility Director GRI DISCLOSURE COVERED: G4-1 WELCOME TO EDELMAN’S FIFTH GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP REPORT We have embedded citizenship in our culture since my father founded the firm in 1952. Five years ago, we committed to take an even more robust citizenship journey. We formed a dedicated citizenship team, set aspirational goals and began the ongoing work of engaging our stakeholders in the journey. Along the way, our approach has evolved. We’ve refined our strategies in response to stakeholder input, in keeping with the results of our annual Global Trust Barometer and in step with the general expectations of society. Today, I’m pleased to report that global citizenship is becoming increasingly aligned with our corporate strategy. We’ve achieved several key milestones, and we’re integrating a citizenship 8.2 GLOBAL mindset into everything we do. This has been an important goal since we began this work. I’m proud of everything Edelman individuals and teams have done around the world to get us to this C-SCORE EXCEEDING OUR GOAL OF REACHING 8.0 John Edelman point. They truly are helping us change tomorrow’s story. Managing Director, Global Engagement & Corporate Responsibility A few highlights from fiscal year 2015 (FY15): METRICS AND RECOGNITION C-Score CDP Ecovadis Every Edelman office contributed to a global We completed our first CDP (formerly Carbon Edelman earned a silver designation in this Citizenship Score, or C-Score, of 8.2 of a Disclosure Project) response in FY15 and external measurement of our citizenship possible 10, above and beyond our goal of submitted it in July 2015, providing three approach and performance. years of carbon data from Edelman’s hub reaching 8.0 in the first full year of the scoring Carbon Trust Standard offices which comprise nearly two-thirds of process. By operationalizing citizenship Our London office was among the first our emissions. through this tool, our offices are empowered businesses in the U.K. to get certified to to establish local goals, set priorities and this voluntary standard, which recognizes monitor progress. performance and commitment to reducing our carbon footprint. EDELMAN 2015 CITIZENSHIP REPORT > CHANGING TOMORROW’S STORY From Our Corporate Responsibility Director 2 From Our Corporate Responsibility Director ENGAGING OUR PEOPLE RESPONDING TO STAKEHOLDER INPUT LOOKING TOWARD TOMORROW Pro Bono Sustainable Office Operations Since assuming this role five years ago, it has Building on our FY14 policy of providing paid Our annual global citizenship survey revealed become even more apparent that citizenship time off for pro bono and volunteer service, that half of our employees felt the company is a must-do, not a nice-to-do. Back in 2010, 85% of our offices developed plans for local was not doing enough to operate our offices the market was just beginning to signal that engagement in FY15, committing to 75 pro sustainably. We convened an environmental citizenship is an essential function. Today, it is bono projects overall. working group that is developing and piloting core to our clients—and to our own business. recommendations related to employee Even so, we’ve learned that citizenship is Community Service >32,000 Employees donated more than 32,000 hours commuting, recycling and green meetings, about evolution, not revolution. We are most HOURS VOLUNTEERED to professional and general volunteer service. among others, in 24 offices. successful when we focus on a few priority initiatives, monitor them closely and report our While this fell short of our ambitious goal to Health and Well-Being provide 40,000 hours, it represents a 41% Employees told us that health and well-being progress transparently. increase over last year. is a priority, so we began a global initiative Moving forward, we want to build on our to determine which programs already exist momentum. We will continue communicating Training Employees recorded over 157,000 hours of across our network and make global policy with our offices around the world and online and in-person training in FY15 – nearly recommendations for employee well-being. collaborating with Edelman’s human resources, finance, information technology 29 hours of training per employee. Sustainable Purchasing >157,000 Feedback from our clients and other and health & well-being teams to drive further Networking Groups performance. Our progress is incremental, and HOURS OF ONLINE AND We launched a new affinity group, Edelman stakeholders has highlighted the importance IN-PERSON TRAINING while we have begun changing tomorrow’s Equal, focused on LGBT employees and of developing a sustainable purchasing strategy and supplier diversity policy. In FY14, story with all we have accomplished to date, their allies, and committed to three more we formed a working group to investigate we still have much more to do. I hope you will groups for FY16: African-American, Hispanic options for addressing these issues. In FY15 continue to be part of our journey. and veterans. we started to develop an action plan with a clear scope, objectives, requirements and potential solutions. We expect to start developing Phase 1 in the second half of FY16, with an initial focus on supplier diversity in John Edelman is the U.S. managing director of global engagement and corporate responsibility EDELMAN 2015 CITIZENSHIP REPORT > CHANGING TOMORROW’S STORY From Our Corporate Responsibility Director 3 Fiscal Year 2015 Citizenship Performance GRI DISCLOSURE COVERED: G4-2 C-SCORE KPIS ASSESSMENT ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Overall Citizenship Score 8.2/10 Some variation exists between the indicators tracked on our Citizenship Dashboard (and reflected in our global C-Score), and Edelman’s global goals.