Social impact report summary 2024

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Feature

Investing for the long term. Our futures depend on it.

Introduction

Since the first days of L&G in 1836, we’ve understood the importance of taking decisive action to create lasting value for society. Our purpose, which emphasises investing for the long term, goes to the heart of our social impact approach. This report sets out how we seek to address important social issues while also seeking to generate long-term value for our customers, clients, employees, shareholders and other stakeholders.

Looking back at 2024

Long-term financial wellbeing

We take a ‘life stage’ approach to financial wellbeing. We continued our financial education partnership with RedSTART, launched new engagement tools aimed at young adults, and continued to work with older people’s charities.

A group of people are seated in a semi-circle on green couches in Legal & General’s Cardiff office. The space is adorned with plants hanging from the ceiling.

Better communities in which to live and work

Our Social Impact Toolkit allowed us to continue assessing and improving the impact of our real estate investments, while our affordable housing businesses and new fund helped tackle the UK’s housing shortage.

Four people seated on a dark grey circular sofa in Legal & General’s London office. Plants are arranged in the centre of the seating area, behind the people.

Engaging customers and employees with our impact

We recognise our responsibility to our customers and employees and we seek to engage them in the impact we have. We championed the ‘hidden workforce’, supported clients with employee wellbeing, and empowered our people to ‘give back’.

Responsible role model

We continue to invest in our people, their wellbeing and their skill and expertise. We launched a new sustainable procurement strategy and took further steps to eliminate modern slavery from our operation and supply chain.

 Donated to UK civil society organisations (£m) 
 £5.2m 
  
 Non-profits supported 
 280+ 
  
 Children attended RedSTART workshops supported by L&G 
 3,034 
  

 Invested in developing our people (£m) 
 £4.5m 
  
 Affordable homes in operation/development 
 8,500 
  
 Health equity fund announced (£m) 
 £3m 
  

Our sustainability focus areas

In 2022, we set out our sustainability focus areas. These reflect where we have the greatest potential to create social, economic and environmental impact, while seeking to generate returns for our customers, clients and shareholders.

We’ll promote people long-term and lifelong financial security for people by providing good value, simple, inclusive and accessible products, education for more people.

We’ll build better communities by delivering socially and environmentally positive housing and workplaces at scale. We’ll create long-term economic prosperity by engaging thoughtfully with communities to meet their needs.

We’ll make sure our customers and employees know that, by being part of L&G, they have a positive impact. We’ll meet demand for these impacts by placing them at the centre of how we do business and design more of our products.

We’re committed to running our business in a responsible way. This includes supporting mental and physical health and wellbeing, promoting diversity and inclusion, and enabling social mobility – in our own business and in how we influence and interact with others.

We have a transition plan we are delivering against to decarbonise our business and reach net zero. We are integrating our strategy for addressing nature loss into our climate strategy.

Our futures depend on the investment decisions we make today. So, it’s important that they’re taken with care, expertise, and the right focus on the long term. As we look to the future, we have talented people and a clear strategy to enable us to make decisions today which will create long-lasting value, as we have done since 1836.

António Simões

Group CEO