BCE wins award for Best Overall Corporate Governance – International
Communication is definitely something BCE, Canada’s largest communications firm, knows a lot about, so it’s not surprising the company believes being more transparent in its governance is in everyone’s best interests.
In August, that commitment to transparency helped BCE win the Canadian Coalition for Good Governance’s Gavel Award for best disclosure of board governance and director qualifications, which is given to a company that demonstrates exceptional communication with its shareholders. In fact, BCE openly shares information about many of its good governance practices on its website, such as its ‘Statement of corporate governance principles and guidelines’, which describes the board’s expectations and the responsibilities of its directors; and its code of business conduct and ethics program, which includes an auditor independence policy and a whistleblower policy.
The company is also universally praised for consistently being among the first to adopt good governance policies such as internal audit and risk management measures, a comprehensive board evaluation process and electronic voting during shareholder meetings. All of this contributed to BCE being named winner of Corporate Secretary’s best overall governance – international award for 2013.
‘One of the main things we focused on this year was really revamping our proxy materials,’ says Michel Lalande, senior vice president and general counsel. ‘We spent a lot of time simplifying them – simplifying our disclosures to make them understandable to our shareholders.’ He notes that some of the enhancements involved adding summary tables at the beginning of the document and including more charts and graphs throughout the proxy. The idea was to ‘get the points we want to make clear to the people who read our documents out there,’ he adds.
Lalande also emphasizes the importance of transparency when dealing with all stakeholders. ‘Ultimately, what we are trying to do is build trust with our investors, because we believe building trust with investors brings value to our company,’ he says.
BCE has also shown its commitment to social responsibility in the last year. Its Blue Box program for mobile device recovery and waste reduction allows it to reuse or recycle 90 percent of the waste materials generated from its network, and the Bell Let’s Talk initiative supports a wide range of programs to enhance awareness, understanding and treatment of mental illness and access to care across Canada.
BCE’s efforts in transparency and the board’s commitment to corporate governance and CSR demonstrate how to uphold the highest ethical and operational standards in every aspect of business.
For photos of the awards, click here.
Award sponsor: Diligent
