Nuestro Informe de responsabilidad corporativa

Czarnikow Group
Corporate Responsibility
Review 2011/12
Experts
in our chosen
markets
Czarnikow is a sugar and ethanol trading, advisory
and supply chain management firm.
Section
Contents
1.0CEO address
2.0About Czarnikow
3.0Corporate responsibility management and reporting
4.0Our corporate responsibility focus areas in detail
4.1
Corporate governance
4.2Clients
4.3Employees
4.4Environment
4.5
Local communities
4.6
Sustainability of the sugar industry
5.0CR contact and feedback
Page
1
2
4
5
6
7
9
11
12
Back
cover
1.0
CEO
address
We are committed to generating shareholder
returns in a sustainable manner and running
our business with integrity, within our strong
corporate governance and compliance
framework.
About this report
This is our first Corporate Responsibility (CR) Review and, unless otherwise indicated, its
scope covers the whole of Czarnikow Group. Our decision to produce this Review reflects
our commitment to engage more transparently with our various stakeholders – clients,
shareholders, funding banks, employees and our local communities. It also recognises their
increasing demand for information about the way we run our business in a sustainable way.
We hope that our first Review goes some way towards achieving this.
To date, our approach towards communicating Corporate Responsibility has been relatively
informal but, as we have grown in number and expanded globally, we appreciate that we
need to articulate our management and performance in this area more proactively. In
collating information for this Review we have identified areas of inherent strength as well
as some gaps and we urge you to consider our first publication as a work in progress. We
have highlighted focus areas along the way and we are committed to updating our
performance in our next Review.
We welcome feedback from all our stakeholders – please find contact details on the
back page of this Review. We look forward to hearing your views.
Robin Cave, Chief Executive Officer
Robin Cave
Chief Executive Officer
CZARNIkow group |
01
2.0
About
Czarnikow
Czarnikow is a sugar and
ethanol trading, advisory and
supply chain management firm.
What we do
We are a service-orientated company whose main business
activity is the trading of sugar and ethanol on behalf of our
clients. We also provide warehousing, logistics, advisory and
execution services. In 2011 our trading turnover was over
$3 billion.
We have well-established partnerships with our suppliers and
logistics operators; we do not own any farming, refining or
transport assets.
Our guiding principles
At Czarnikow, we are passionate about:
• Fundamental analysis
• Creating value for our clients
• Building relationships for the long term
• Understanding local markets from a
global perspective
• Providing innovation and flexibility
across a united team
Where we operate
We trade products globally from 12 offices. Our registered
headquarters is in London and we have 11 other offices in Delhi,
Dubai, Guangzhou, Mexico, Moscow, Nairobi, New York, Point
Lisas (Trinidad), Sao Paulo, Singapore and Tel Aviv. In 2011 we
served over 310 clients across 89 countries.
With whom we work
We work with a variety of clients throughout the supply chain,
from world-renowned mills and refiners to large industrial
consumers who manage leading global consumer brands.
Czarnikow is recognised in the industry for combining its leading global
market knowledge with local expertise.
How we work
We have a reputation for high levels of client service,
confidentiality and ethical standards. We are committed to
operating our business with integrity and promoting awareness
of corporate governance throughout our operations.
Czarnikow provides a spectrum of supply chain management services
tailored to individual client needs.
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| CZARNIkow group
ABOUT CZARNIKOW CONTINUED
Alongside trading, Czarnikow provides
a spectrum of complementary services.
Czarnikow has
188 employees
12 offices
Trading
Operating globally from
Risk management
TEL AVIV
Point Lisas
Structured finance
Moscow
LONDON
New York
Mexico
Distribution / supply chain
management
Dubai
Nairobi
Delhi
Singapore
Guangzhou
Futures execution
Corporate finance
Sao Paulo
Strategic consultancy
Working with over
310 clients
Market analysis
Across
89 countries
In 2011 our trading turnover was over
$3 billion
(physical trades)
CZARNIkow group |
03
3.0
Corporate responsibility
management and reporting
Our five key CR focus areas are
based around the needs of our
own business and those of our
stakeholders.
Our identified key stakeholders are as follows:
•
•
•
•
•
Clients
Shareholders
Funding banks
Employees
Local communities
How we manage our corporate responsibilities
The Czarnikow Board of directors has ultimate responsibility
for the management of our corporate responsibilities and
upholding our commitment to business ethics. The Board
delegates day-to-day duties to employees, with relevant
expertise and experience, who are responsible for specific key
CR focus areas (see below).
Reporting and measuring
Performance in each of our CR focus areas is reported at
various intervals to the Czarnikow Board. Urgent issues arising
outside the usual reporting period can be raised with the CEO
at any time and this is facilitated by our “open door” policy.
Local
Communities
CORPORATE
GOVERNANCE
Key responsibility
Czarnikow Charity
Committee (CCC)
Key responsibility
Company Secretary & Group
Compliance Officer
Credit Committee
see page 10
Sustainability of the Sugar Industry
see page 5
Environment
see page 12
Key responsibility
Czarnikow Charity
Committee (CCC)
see page 6
see page 9
Employees
Key responsibility
HR Manager
see page 7
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| CZARNIkow group
CLIENTS
Key responsibility
Trading Directors
4.1
Corporate
governance
We are committed to adopting
and promoting high standards
of corporate governance and
ethics across our business and
with all stakeholders.
Our approach
Czarnikow has high ethical standards and doing business
responsibly is one of the reasons why our clients choose us.
We are subject to many different local jurisdictions and also
business-specific regulations (for example, for parts of our
advisory and execution services). We have made a conscious
decision to be incorporated in the UK and to comply with UK
regulations as these set high levels of governance, which often
exceed local requirements, e.g. the Bribery Act 2010,
implemented in the UK on 1st July 2011. For parts of our
advisory and execution services, all relevant UK and US
employees are qualified appropriately. We have set strict rules
about Corporate Hospitality and its reporting as part of
Czarnikow’s Anti-Bribery Policy and we have a zero tolerance
approach to facilitation payments.
We have a Credit Committee which meets weekly. Its
responsibilities include the ethical selection and vetting
of counterparties. The Czarnikow Board has ultimate
responsibility for upholding our commitment to ethical
standards across the Group.
Reporting
A Compliance, Financial Crime and Corporate Governance
Report is presented monthly to the Board. A Compliance and
Anti-Money Laundering Report is circulated annually to the
Board. The Credit Committee issues a weekly Credit Committee
Decisions report.
Our current priorities
•
•
•
•
Legal compliance
Anti-money laundering
Tackling financial crime
Reinforcing the compliance culture
Our Company Secretary & Group Compliance Officer, Jeremy
Nickson, is responsible for all Compliance and Financial Crime
issues. He is also the Money Laundering Reporting Officer for
the Group. He is assisted by an Assistant Compliance Officer
and a team of nine Nominated Officers located across the Group
who, between them, cover all Czarnikow offices. The Nominated
Officers’ role is to co-ordinate the Compliance and AntiFinancial Crime functions, including client due diligence, risk
assessment and keeping up to date with legal and regulatory
issues within their jurisdiction. The team also has regular
contact with local lawyers and completes any necessary training
courses.
We use a combination of e-learning and smaller group
instruction sessions to ensure that each employee is made
aware of the Group’s policies and procedures related to his or
her individual role. The Compliance department carries out
continuous monitoring in line with a set programme.
Jeremy Nickson,
Company Secretary &
Group Compliance Officer
CZARNIkow group |
05
4.2
Clients
We are committed to providing
high standards of client service,
recognising that the strength
of our client relationships is
pivotal to the success of our
business.
Our approach
Reporting
Relationship updates by key client are recorded monthly in
the Board Report with additional information reported to the
Board as and when required. We record information from
formal client reviews and measure repeat business.
Our current priorities
• Global client relationship management
• Client satisfaction and feedback
In 2011 Czarnikow served over 310 clients. These range from
local sugar growers, mills, factories and refineries to industrial
consumers, whose global brands are household names. Our
reputation for high levels of client service is critical to obtaining
new and repeat business and, over the years, we have managed
to build significant long-standing relationships.
Our organisational structure reflects the importance of our
day-to-day business with our clients. On the physical trading
side, five Trading Directors are responsible by geographical
location and/or traded product. They ensure that excellent
relationships are maintained with our key clients and that
our client service ethos remains equally high across all other
business areas, such as the provision of logistics, market
analysis and execution services.
Adam Leetham,
Norman Blum,
Jonathan Williams,
Toby Cohen,
William Rook,
Trading Directors
We are passionate about understanding our clients’ business
requirements in order to offer the most appropriate service.
For many of our clients sugar is either a staple or a crucial
component of their overall business and we strive to ensure
consistency of supply in recognition of this. Where possible, we
provide complete transparency of the sugar’s origin, facilitating
many of our clients’ own reporting requirements.
Our core operating areas
Our clients
Raw (unrefined) sugar
White (refined) sugar
Ethanol
Advisory: Market intelligence
Advisory: Corporate finance
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| CZARNIkow group
Industrial consumers
Refineries
Growers
Mills
Factories
Investors
4.3
Employees
The quality of our employees is
fundamental to our future
success. We are committed to
making Czarnikow a stimulating
and rewarding place to work.
Our approach
Czarnikow employs 188 people. Our Human Resources (HR)
team, headed by Sharon Blore-Rimmer, has the day-to-day
responsibility for developing and implementing the necessary
processes and procedures to ensure that Czarnikow Group and
all its employees are compliant with the law and good practice.
The HR team is also responsible for the welfare of our
employees, the provision of good workplace standards, sound
health and safety requirements and fair pay and conditions.
It oversees the performance review process, manages and
develops internal talent, determines employee benefits and
rewards and recruits new people fairly and in line with
company values. The HR function is supported and mentored
by two Directors, Mario Bolivar and Adam Leetham.
Our current priorities
•
•
•
•
Recruitment and selection process
Induction programme
Employee review process
Employee survey
Length of service %
<1 to 5 years
41%
of employees
have worked at
Czarnikow for
over 5 years
10 to 19 years
20 years and above
Gender of employees %
Male
Employee policies
We aim to employ a workforce that reflects the diversity of
our clients. Our employment policies, including a commitment
to equal opportunity, are designed to attract and retain highcalibre people, regardless of age, gender, race, religion,
disability, nationality or sexual orientation. It is our policy
to provide employees with training and career development
so they can achieve success within the company. We offer
flexible working where practicable, to help people achieve a
work life balance.
5 to 9 years
Female
34
66
Our Employee Handbook is updated regularly and contains a
comprehensive set of policies including, for example, disclosure
of public interest matters and whistleblowing, positive working
environment, alleged harassment and bullying, and
discrimination. Online training on equality, discrimination,
harassment and bullying is given to all UK employees. A copy
of our Employee Handbook is available upon request.
MORE ABOUT EMPLOYEES see page 8
Sharon Blore-Rimmer,
HR Manager
CZARNIkow group |
07
4.3
Employees
continued
Employee length of service and retention
Reporting
We are proud of the fact that we have many long-serving
employees. Our average length of service is around seven years
and over 20% of employees have been with us for ten years or
more. At the other end of the spectrum, around 60% of our
employees have been with us less than five years, with our
recent business growth creating demand for a high number
of new joiners – around 50 since 2009.
We have set targets for the completion of annual employee
reviews and the number of employees with agreed personal
training plans.
Employee gender profile
Employee split by location %
1
1
1
2
Around one third of our employees within the Group are
female. We recruit and promote on a gender-neutral basis.
5
3
33
5
Employee location and communication
We believe effective employee communication and consultation
is particularly important in achieving our business objectives.
We value our employees’ opinions and seek to involve them
actively in the decision making process. Around half of our
employees are based in the London office; the other half work
in 11 offices around the world. We are mindful of the
communication challenges that this brings across different
cultures and time zones and we have recently introduced a
series of cross-departmental initiatives to promote the sharing
of best practice across the Group.
Managing our talent
Czarnikow expects every employee to take responsibility for his
or her performance and to work together to achieve our vision.
We are committed to identifying and supporting the talent
within our business by building on our current training and
coaching programmes and ensuring that performance and
talent is rewarded commensurately.
We introduced a new employee review system two years ago
and we are now in a position to assess better the strengths and
weaknesses of our skillset and to build around this
understanding a structured induction, recruitment and
selection process, training opportunities and more formal
performance-related objectives. In 2012 we aim to implement
our first employee survey to identify where we need to focus our
efforts to underpin our commitment to providing a stimulating
and rewarding work environment.
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| CZARNIkow group
49
6
8
15
London
New York
Sao Paulo
Moscow
Singapore
Guangzhou
Dubai
Israel
Delhi
Miami
Mexico
Point Lisas (Trinidad)
Nairobi
Case study
Partnership with leading business school
As part of its commitment to provide a stimulating and
rewarding environment for its employees, Czarnikow has
established a formal partnership with Cass Business School.
This partnership allows Czarnikow employees to benefit from
the latest business thinking and academic research. Czarnikow’s
involvement also allows it to search for the best business
graduate talent and promote the advantages of working for
a specialised company.
4.4
Environment
We aim to manage and
minimise our environmental
impact where we have direct
control.
Our current priorities
• Recycling policy
• Recycled waste improvement targets
Our approach
As an office-based service company our immediate
environmental impact over which we have direct control is
limited predominantly to the buildings in which we work.
At present our approach is decentralised. For example, in our
US office we comply with the New York recycling regulations
and we encourage the use of public transport by participating
in the TransitCheck commuter benefits programme.
In our London office (our largest office), we recycle plastics,
paper, card, food waste, IT equipment and consumables,
stamps and cans and estimate that around 80% of our London
office waste is recycled.
Reporting
We are working to develop internal targets in the areas of waste
and energy reduction and the Czarnikow Charity Committee
(see page 11) has been tasked to collate and report on
environmental initiatives and results across Czarnikow. We aim
to include an update on our progress in our next CR Review.
Did you know?
Around 80%
of waste generated from our London
office is recycled – we aim to improve
this figure year on year.
CZARNIkow group |
09
AFRICAN GIFTED FOUNDATION (AGF)
“We had an amazing time
at the Academy, whose aim
is to provide educational
opportunities to hundreds
of gifted students in Africa
each year.”
Czarnikow employees, Alesha White and Oliver Hire,
spent ten days in January 2012 mentoring 14-16 year
old students at the AGF Academy, held in the Makere
University, Uganda.
During the closing ceremony, Czarnikow presented
a special award to Oken for his outstanding academic
achievements and funded his first ever trip abroad to
London to spend time in a local school and at our offices.
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| CZARNIkow group
4.5
Local
communities
We are committed to supporting
the local communities where we
are active.
Our approach
In 2011 Czarnikow made charitable donations across a variety
of causes and also donated company time, some examples of
which can be seen in the case studies opposite and below. At the
end of 2011 we inaugurated the Czarnikow Charity Committee
(CCC) in order to adopt a more formal approach to our
fundraising initiatives, recognising the opportunity we have to
engage more effectively with our communities in the markets
where we are active. The CCC is an employee-run committee
comprising a cross-section of people around the Group. It is
responsible for supporting charities and causes with strong
links to local offices and communities and for communicating
initiatives.
Case study
Career Academy Internships
For the past two years we have participated in the UK Career
Academies scheme, providing a paid six-week work placement
to Sixth Form pupils from Lambeth Academy. Michael worked
for us in the IT Department in 2011 and has subsequently
enrolled on a business-related university course.
“In the last 12 months Michael has added a level of maturity
to his character, and walks a bit taller around the building,
such is his confidence. He is now hugely employable, and
aspires to studying business. I am positive the Career
Academy, and Czarnikow, have been a major factor in this.”
Dan Blakemore, Director of Learning, Lambeth Academy.
www.careeracademies.org.uk
Reporting
The CCC reports quarterly internally via the intranet and
formally once a year to the Board. An overview of key activities
will be included in future Corporate Responsibility Reviews.
In 2012, the CCC identified future areas of focus and agreed to
report on the level of volunteer hours in its inaugural year with
a view to setting a year-on-year improvement target.
Michael Taiwo working in the Czarnikow IT department.
Czarnikow Charity Committee
Offices
Delhi
London
Mexico
New York
Sao Paulo
Singapore
Employee representatives
Tarang Kumar
Maggie Delaney, Tonya Duck, Alexander Simuyandi
Oscar Matus
Christophe Armero
Ana Carolina Ferraz
Raine Lim
CZARNIkow group |
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4.6
Sustainability
of the sugar industry
We work with our clients on
both the supply and demand
side to uphold high industry
standards.
Whilst we have long-standing relationships with many of our
clients, including growers, we have no financial interest in any
of their operations and own no farming assets. Nonetheless
we are acutely aware of some of the sustainability and ethical
issues associated with the industry. It is in our interest to
work with our clients on both the supply and demand side to
uphold high industry standards. We facilitate, for example, due
diligence for many of our industrial clients and we abide by
their own codes of conduct.
Over many decades Czarnikow has worked to represent the
interests of some of the world’s poorest sugar producers,
facilitating access to the preferential European and US markets.
Our own sustainability due diligence includes the ethical selection and
vetting of counterparties.
We have embraced the need
for sustainability in ethanol
and renewable energy.
Czarnikow has also actively embraced the need for
sustainability in ethanol and renewable energy and has led
the way in certification for Brazilian bio-ethanol. Czarnikow’s
Corporate Finance team has established a leading role in
bringing investment in co-generation to the Brazilian sugar and
ethanol industry which further enhances the low CO2 footprint
of cane-based ethanol production.
We also facilitate due diligence for many of our industrial customers
and we abide by their own codes of conduct.
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| CZARNIkow group
SUSTAINABLE ethanol IN BRAZIL
Working with our clients
to promote sustainable
production
Czarnikow was approached by a leading European
independent fuel blender to assist it in sourcing
environmentally-sustainable ethanol from Brazil. At the time,
European sustainability requirements were still in the process
of being defined under the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive
(RED) and so this was new ground for producers.
Czarnikow undertook to help a number of its Brazilian clients
to adapt to the new and anticipated EU legislation. Whilst
many of these clients already had good processes in place,
the need to demonstrate product sustainability was a new
requirement. Czarnikow assisted the mills in preparing
pre-audits and, later, comprehensive full audits covering:
agricultural husbandry, including soil conservation, fertiliser
and herbicide usage; internal management and control;
environmental aspects, including conservation plans,
deforestation, water resources, waste disposal; and social
aspects, including remuneration, health and safety, social
commitment and engagement with the community.
These mills were the first sugarcane processors in the world
to achieve Gold Standard for sustainable ethanol.
czarnikow GROUP
24 Chiswell Street
London
EC1Y 4SG
T +44 (0)20 7972 6600
F +44 (0)20 7972 6699
e [email protected]
www.czarnikow.com
DELHI | DUBAI | GUANGZHOU | LONDON | MEXICO | MOSCOW | NAIROBI | NEW YORK | POINT LISAS | SAO PAULO | SINGAPORE | Tel Aviv
We welcome feedback on any of
the topics we have raised in this
Corporate Responsibility Review.
Please contact us: [email protected]