Remarks by: Signi Schneider
Chief Corporate Social Responsibility Advisor
Ottawa - September 14, 2011

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I’m very delighted to be here today.

I am Signi Schneider and my role is Chief Corporate Social Responsibility Advisor for EDC.

My job is to provide the strategic direction for Corporate Social Responsibility - or CSR - at EDC. This position was created because of the importance EDC places on CSR issues. In fact, CSR touches all of our business – it’s incorporated into every decision.

Today, I’d like to first talk about how our CSR program evolved over the years. Then I’ll speak about some of the highlights of our activities in 2010 and now that it’s September, I’ll speak a bit about 2011 as well.

Our own CSR journey has been a reflection of the evolution of globalized trade. As you know, EDC does business where Canadian exporters and investors do business. Increasingly - this has meant going more and more into emerging markets where CSR issues can be more complex.

As these issues became more challenging – our CSR program became more sophisticated. It evolved in tandem with the integration of global trade – as well as the expectations of the public and our expectations for ourselves. Let me explain.

Technically, we began implementing a CSR program in 1999. The fact is that CSR issues - business ethics and doing the right thing - have always played a part in our business decisions.

What we did in 1999 was formalize our existing procedures - we developed our first CSR strategy and a formal Environmental Review Framework.

Then, as corruption issues around the world were taken more seriously, we developed a governance system around that – Anti-Corruption program with early checks and balances to detect corruption.

As environmental sustainability came to the forefront more – and people better understood the connection between trade investment and environmental issues - we developed our framework further with a formal Environmental Review Directive and Policy.

For the same reasons - we developed an increasingly structured approach to assessing human rights impacts.

We did the same for community investment.  In fact, let me tell you about an innovative program we’re quite proud of – our partnership with CARE Canada. Each year we send 4 volunteers to lend their business expertise to various CARE small business development projects around the world.

Last year we sent volunteers to Zambia for four months and recently sent another volunteer to work with CARE India. These EDCers are doing some great work helping develop small business in some very remote communities of the world. You can read more about the program in our 2010 CSR Annual Report.

To be clear - these issues have always been part of our decision making process. But as they became more complex and expectations grew – we matured our CSR program accordingly – and moved these issues into the earlier stages of our transaction process.

In fact, in some areas – we’ve been ahead of the curve. Particularly with respect to adopting various international best practices for reviewing projects for environmental issues. Some of which you may have heard of: the Equator Principles for example - and more recently - our adoption of the IFC Performance Standards. [a common set of environmental and social standards for financial institutions]

Until we eventually arrived to where we are today - where CSR is fully integrated into all aspects of our business. And where our executive team and board of directors are CSR advocates themselves.

All this to say CSR has never been an “add-on” at EDC. Quite the opposite. Our program has matured along a continuum - to the point where CSR issues carry as much weight as any other issue in the decisions we make. We now have more than 20 employees dedicated to Corporate Social Responsibility: including a team of environment advisors.

So given that context, let me tell you about some of our major activities in 2010, most of which centered around our Environmental Framework.

In 2010 - we undertook a revision this framework – which we renamed the Environmental and Social Risk Management Framework - to better reflect the importance we place on social risks such as labour issues.

The new framework now clarifies and provides more transparency around our project review processes - and ensures they are in line with international best practices. Within the policy we also developed a Climate Change strategy because we need to better understand and assess climate risks and opportunities associated with our clients business.

In 2010 there was also a great deal of debate around the issue of human rights, largely through deliberations on a private members bill which was before Parliament. The debate made it clear to us that our stakeholders want more details on what we already do - how we review and assess the potential impacts of projects we support, including human rights. And  we’ve taken steps to do so.

In 2010 we also participated in the work of Dr. John Ruggie, the UN Special Representative of the Secretary General, on the responsibility of businesses’ to respect human rights - which – we were pleased to hear  the UN recently endorsed.

Which brings me to 2011.

This past year we undertook a strategic review of our CSR program: We benchmarked ourselves against the CSR practices of other export credit agencies and our private sector peers. We do this regularly to ensure our commitments and obligations are in line with evolving best practices – and this was a year when many of these international standards were undergoing revision.

For example, the IFC Performance Standards were revised to include a greater focus on bio-diversity, climate change and indigenous rights.

With these in mind, 3 themes emerged, which will set our direction for coming years

First, we will work to promote and ensure consistency in the application of these international standards. This is important because more and more, we find ourselves at the same financing table with multiple parties from different countries – both North and South.

And not all parties apply these standards as vigorously as we do, particularly with respect to ethics, and environmental and social concerns [even pricing].  So our goal is to promote a greater commonality among global financial institutions to ensure the level of review is consistent and that our peers are all on the same page.

We believe this will better serve global environmental and social issues – and mitigate any competitive advantage others players might have over Canadian companies.

Secondly, we began work on a Clean Tech Strategy.

Currently there is a large global demand for energy efficient products – an area where Canadian companies have a great deal of expertise. We plan to play a much larger role in helping Canadian companies benefit from this growth.

The third theme that emerged was Transparency. We plan on providing more information on projects we support moving forward specifically projects with a high potential for negative impact.

And part of my role is to do just that – let you know about more of the good work we’re doing on CSR.

So - we’ve learned throughout our own journey – is that there is no “final state” for CSR. We’ve made steady progress over the years. But we recognize that - as CSR issues evolve - there is always room to grow.

And that will be a large part of my role moving forward. To ensure that we continue to examine our practices, engage with our customers, peers, critics and the public and look for areas to evolve.

Thank you. Merci.

Read the online CSR report online.