SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Telus gives where it lives.
Telus Corporate recipient
When it comes to corporate social responsibility efforts at Telus Corp., the company’s legal department plays a vital role.
Telus bills itself as “Canada’s fastest-growing national telecommunications company.” It has $12.1 billion of annual revenue and 13.9 million customers, with services in wireless, wireline, Internet and TV. It is also Canada’s largest health care IT provider.
“Social responsibility is very big at Telus. It is part of our culture,” says Monique Mercier, chief legal officer and execu- tive vice-president, corporate affairs. “As a company, we’re really trying to input social and environmental considerations in almost everything we do.”
The legal department is front and centre with one of Telus’s big initiatives, community giving.
“We have a strong belief that if you do good in the community where you live, it should be good for business. We give where we live.”
The company has 11 Community Boards and three international boards that provide funding to local grassroots organizations in each city where the company has operations.
A Telus in-house lawyer provides legal and governance support to each of the boards, which are made up of local citizens. Since 2005, Telus Community Boards have contrib- uted more than $47 million to 3,700 projects.
The legal group was instrumental in an initiative with the organization Free the Children to encourage youths to be philanthropic leaders in their community.
Mercier said the department is also looking at “different ways to work.” About 60 per cent of the team “doesn’t have a dedicated office,” working either on the go or from home. “It reduces the environmental footprint,” and has helped the company cut back on its real estate, she said. Its new head office in Vancouver will be a leading LEED building, featuring solar panels and water recycling.
The legal team is also driving sustainability into Telus’s procurement and supply chain and its RFP process.
We (Telus) have a strong belief that if you do good in the community where you live, it should be good for business. We give where we live.
— Monique Mercier, chief legal officer and executive vice-president, corporate affairs, for Telus Corp.