An Interview with John Buckley, BNY Mellon Director of Corporate Social Responsibility

Why is corporate responsibility leadership important for the financial services industry?
Showing greater corporate responsibility is absolutely critical to our industry’s future. We need to revive trust in the global financial system so that consumer and investor confidence strengthen and the world’s economies can grow. Making that happen means embracing responsible policies and practices that encourage greater public confidence and make a difference to wider society.

What is the thinking behind BNY Mellon’s new CSR strategy?
Over the past two years, we consulted widely with stakeholders within and outside of our company on the direction our sustainability efforts should take to have the most impact. We settled on six key themes for our strategic focus: ethics and transparency, operational reliability and effectiveness, responsible investments, strong governance, excellent talent, and community commitment.

For each, we have set performance indicators and long-term goals to keep us on track (see our 2012 CSR report). This has been a milestone year, and we want to exchange ideas and dialogue with others in the industry.

What can the financial services industry do to further drive engagement on CSR issues?
Each firm needs to understand its own highest responsibilities to society and work to fulfill those. Also, as an industry we can collaborate on best practices that help our industry better serve society. BNY Mellon wants to change the CSR discussion for our industry. We want to shift our focus beyond environment and philanthropy, so that we can concentrate on the issues most material to financial services and where we can have the greatest impact as an industry.