Dear fellow stakeholders,
As we mark the 170th anniversary of Western Union, I cannot think of a more fitting way to honor our company’s sustained legacy than the release of our third annual Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Report and Executive Summary.
Our report comes in the wake of the most challenging year in recent history. Many communities around the world continue to endure significant hardship as the health and economic implications of COVID-19 remain front and center. And as a society, we have barely begun to address the racial injustices and inequities that persist across the globe, coming to the fore in the U.S. and other countries over the last year.
Though 2020 put our company, our customers, and our employees to the test, I am proud to say that we emerged stronger, more resilient, and with an even sharper focus on our role as a connector of people and businesses globally. The pandemic reinforced our longstanding determination to be a global force for good.
We identified three key priorities that we believe will allow us to maximize our impact: advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), promoting the integrity of global money movement and furthering economic prosperity.
In this summary, we highlight six areas in which we advanced these priorities in 2020:
Connecting people and businesses to the global economy: By making complex international transactions easy, reliable, and compliant, we help businesses to expand beyond borders and individuals to prosper and thrive.
Fostering an engaging and inclusive culture: As a global organization with employees born in more than 120 countries, we recognize the important role we can play in advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion through our own corporate culture.
Moving money with integrity: Our business is based on trust, and we are committed to keeping our services out of the hands of those who would use them to do harm.
Governing and managing for success: Our governance and management practices are founded on principles of accountability, integrity, fairness, reliability, and security.
Safeguarding our shared environment: To minimize our footprint and improve our environmental performance, we are examining our operations through the lens of sustainability. We have several mitigation initiatives in place to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from our operations and business travel.
Training, education, and humanitarian relief: Since 2001, the Western Union Foundation has given more than $131 million to help hundreds of thousands of people across the globe through education, job training, and disaster relief.
These are exciting yet undeniably challenging times for all of us – times that call for concerted, responsible, collective action. Together with my colleagues throughout Western Union, I look forward to continuing our important work in alignment with the highest standards of responsibility, integrity, and sustainability. Together, we will build the bridges that extend opportunity, unlock potential, uplift communities, and improve lives.
Hikmet Ersek
President, Chief Executive Officer, and Director
Western Union Customer
