Corporate responsibility governance

The Corporate Responsibility Committee, a Board of Directors (BoD) committee, was created in 2001 and assesses how to meet the evolving expectations of UBS’s stakeholders in relation to the firm’s corporate conduct. If the Corporate Responsibility Committee concludes that there is a gap between what stakeholders expect and what UBS practices – and that this gap represents either a risk or an opportunity to the firm – it suggests appropriate actions to the Group Executive Board (GEB).

The Corporate Responsibility Committee is chaired by Peter Kurer, Chairman of UBS, and includes two other members of the BoD. The Corporate Responsibility Committee is advised and supported by a group of senior UBS executives representing UBS businesses and a number of corporate functions. The committee meets two to three times a year. It is supported by a working group that comprises 22 functional experts from all UBS business groups and is chaired by the firm’s Chief Communication Officer, one of the advisors to the Corporate Responsibility Committee.

Neither the Corporate Responsibility Committee nor the working group runs operational processes related to corporate responsibility; it is the GEB that has overall responsibility for corporate responsibility strategy and that decides on specific corporate responsibility measures. The implementation of these measures is then undertaken within existing processes in the different business groups.

For example, the GEB is responsible for UBS’s environmental policy and nominates a Group Environmental Representative. Each business group also nominates a representative, and together with the Group Representative, they form a committee that oversees the implementation of UBS’s environmental policy. This committee also provides guidance to the different business groups in their implementation of “UBS’s Statement on Human Rights”. It is chaired by the Group Chief Credit Officer and is supported by coordinators and functional units across the business groups.