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Corporate responsibility at GSK
Corporate responsibility governance

Corporate Responsibility Report 2008

Corporate responsibility governance

Our Corporate Responsibility Committee (CRC) of Non-Executive Directors provides high-level guidance on our approach to CR.

The CEO and members of the Corporate Executive Team (CET) are accountable for responsible management of the business and participate in CRC meetings.

During 2008 the Committee members were Sir Christopher Gent (Chair), Dr Stephanie Burns, Dr Daniel Podolsky, Sir Ian Prosser and Tom de Swaan.

The Committee meets three times a year to review our policies and progress on our CR Principles. The Committee reviews our performance against five of our CR Principles annually. These are access to medicines, standards of ethical conduct, research and innovation, employment practices and community investment. Other Principles are discussed at least once every two years. The Committee reports its findings to the Board.

Management of corporate responsibility

Image of CR at GSK

During 2008 the CRC reviewed GSK’s activity in a number of areas, including access to medicines, community partnerships, humanitarian donations, employee volunteering, sales and marketing practices, disclosure of funding of medical education and patient advocacy groups, product safety and communication of clinical trial results, R&D on diseases of the developing world, use of animals in research, outsourcing of research, research in emerging markets, reduction of employee numbers through restructuring, employee consultation requirements and employment litigation in the US.

The Committee also reviews and signs off the annual performance information published on this website and our annual CR highlights document.

To augment GSK's engagement with stakeholder opinion, in March 2009 Sophia Tickell was appointed as an external advisor to the Corporate Responsibility Committee. Sophia is an Executive Director and member of the Leadership team at SustainAbility, a think tank and consultancy that seeks to enhance business engagement with social and environmental concerns. Sophia has extensive experience of constructively challenging companies to increase their understanding of societal expectations and to develop strategies to meet them. She has gained this experience in her work as a journalist in Latin America, through her work in international development and her advocacy work at Oxfam and, most recently, through her direction of the investor-led Pharma Futures dialogues which aim to better align societal and shareholder value. Sophia will attend the meetings of the Corporate Responsibility Committee and advise the company in this capacity.

Corporate responsibility risks

Our Risk Oversight and Compliance Council (ROCC) coordinates the management of significant business risks. The ROCC also considers reputational and corporate responsibility risks. Read more about risk management and compliance at GSK.

Management structure

CR covers a very diverse range of issues at GSK so we believe it should be managed within our business functions, where the relevant subject experts work. We have a cross-functional team made up of representatives from key business areas which oversees development, implementation and communication of policies, including any responsibility elements, across GSK. The members are senior managers with direct access to our Corporate Executive Team.

We have a small central CR team to coordinate policy development and reporting specifically with respect to CR, and to communicate with socially responsible investors and other stakeholders.

Measuring performance

We have established metrics and key performance indicators to track our performance on responsibility issues.