Amanda Rayner, BankWest's Head of Strategy, had just finished her meeting with the Managing Director, Jack Silverton and was heading back to her office. It had been a long session but it was important they were both clear on how BankWest's new Corporate Social Responsibility strategy would be rolled out. Jack saw the CSR initiative as central to BankWest's ongoing development of its external brand and core to its internal culture and employee value proposition. Jack knew that CSR was also a priority for its parent company, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, one of Australia's big four banks, which had acquired BankWest in December 2008. This was just before Jack had become Managing Director in January 2009, having previously held senior positions at the Commonwealth Bank. Jack and Amanda had agreed that CSR was about configuring BankWest's principles, policies, processes, practices and programs to achieve some social good beyond BankWest's interests. It needed to be an approach that created value and positively impacted the four key CSR activity areas of • community • marketplace • environment • workplace. They had discussed the need for the Bank to have a dedicated governance structure in place to steer the agenda, embed the agreed approach into the lines of business and manage risk, auditing, decision-making, measurement and funding. Amanda had outlined how she saw the strategy would meet commercial, legal and public expectations and ensure the Bank behaved ethically. Jack had stressed that focusing on community involvement and building meaningful relationships with the rest of society was paramount as was ensuring that CSR was integrated into the Bank's day-to-day business. In finalising the BankWest approach to CSR, Amanda and Jack had spent quite some time talking about BankWest's history and how that currently positioned the organisation. Amanda had been with BankWest since 1997, two CEOs prior, so she was able to supply a lot of detail. Amanda had explained that BankWest had been established in 1895 as a government-owned agricultural bank within Western Australia to help develop the farming industry. In 1911 there was an expansion of activity as it became a mortgage bank. In 1945, the Bank became a full trading bank and was renamed the Rural and Industries Bank of Western Australia. In 1994 the Bank changed its name to Bank of Western Australia Ltd with a trading name of BankWest and took on a new corporate identity and livery to clearly identify the Bank with Western Australia as a whole. In 1995, after almost 100 years under government ownership, BankWest was 100% acquired by the Bank of Scotland, a 300 year old major UK bank. In 1996 BankWest listed on the Australian Stock Exchange as a public company and up to 50% of the shares were made available for people to purchase. In 1997 a new era in BankWest began with the appointment of a Managing Director, Tom Booth, who came from the National Australia Bank, Australia's largest bank. Tom set about developing a new way of working within the Bank and focused on delivering superior value to customers, creating an exciting and rewarding environment for staff and increasing wealth for shareholders. He introduced a set of core values called Guiding Principles and promoted these as the way to do business. During his tenure he oversaw a range of CSR practices including sponsorship of community and sporting groups, institution of employee programs like Investors in People, and triple bottom line (people, profits, planet) reporting. In May 2003, HBOS plc, formed through a 2001 merger of Bank of Scotland and the UK Halifax Bank, acquired all the outstanding shares in BankWest. On 26 August 2003 the Federal Court of Australia approved the share scheme and trading in BankWest shares on the Australian Stock Exchange ceased, thereby signifying the ending of another phase of the iconic Western Australian financial services institution. Tom remained as BankWest's Managing Director until mid 2004 at which point a new CEO took over the reins. The HBOS Australia CEO, Doug Wentworth, took up his position in July 2004 having come to the position from Westpac, one of Australia's big four banks. He had responsibility for the HBOS Australia Group, which included BankWest, St Andrew's Insurance, Capital Finance, and BOS International. Doug led the drive to replicate the HBOS UK parent company's track record of offering competitive, value-for-money and customer-focused solutions for the benefit of Australian customers. HBOS UK had an established record of CSR with initiatives such as • Foundation for providing donations to designated causes • Staff volunteering program to support community not-for-profits • Paper recycling • Improved accessibility to products for the disadvantaged • People measure to increase staff engagement • Community sponsorships • Social and environmental risk management Mindful of HBOS UK's commitment to CSR, Doug began to incorporate these into the different HBOS Australia businesses with varying degrees of success. Engaging his Divisional Heads was sometimes a challenge as they were often unconvinced of the costs versus benefits of particular initiatives. HBOS Australia's interest in CSR took a bit of a backseat as the impact of the world credit crunch resulting from the February 2007 collapse of the US sub-prime loan market began to spread. In August 2007 HBOS UK's wholesale lending started to dry up leaving HBOS with a "funding gap" of £198 billion caused by their £456 billion in loans to customers and £258 billion in deposits from customers. In normal circumstances HBOS would raise this money in the wholesale money markets, but the credit crunch, was making it increasingly difficult. Over the next few months financial viability became the key focus for HBOS UK resulting in their announcement on 31 July 2008 of a profit fall of 51%. On 18 September 2008 TSB Lloyds, a major UK banking entity, took over all HBOS operations, including HBOS Australia. On 8 October 2008 the Commonwealth Bank of Australia bought BankWest for $2.1 billion with the sale becoming finalised on 19 December 2008. The HBOS Australia CEO, Doug Wentworth, remained with the organisation until Jack Silverton took over as Managing Director of BankWest on 6 Jan 2009. As Jack and Amanda had discussed, having spent the last two years working through the Global Financial Crisis issues and the merging with the Commonwealth Bank, now was a good time to emphasise BankWest's contributions to Corporate Social Responsibility. It was also a way to counteract the current 'bank bashing' that was happening in Australia, which had been inflamed by the major banks raising their loan interest rates above the rises set by the Reserve Bank. Amanda knew that all bank activities were under the media spotlight and that good news stories were important. Once she reached her office, Amanda set about gathering her material for her next meeting with the Heads of each BankWest Division. She thought about how she would handle the questions she knew the Divisional Heads would raise • How would customers view BankWest's more public move into CSR? • Would customers consider the Bank's CSR approach as part of a long-term business strategy, or would they see it merely as a marketing gimmick? • What were the benefits of a CSR policy? • How much investment did this strategy require? • Would adopting socio-environmental standards mean they'd lose clients and deals if they operated in sectors such as asbestos, fish harvesting or timber felling? • What would happen if the CSR policy put financial results at risk?