Global Citizenship

Franklin Templeton’s success is built upon our reputation for excellence and integrity in all aspects of our business. It is essential that our stockholders, clients, mutual fund shareholders, and business partners have confidence in our governance, ethics and compliance practices.

Corporate Governance

Throughout the company’s history we have recognized the importance of building and maintaining a culture of integrity. We take Corporate Governance seriously and are dedicated to operating the company according to the highest principles of accountability, honesty, integrity and ethics.

The Board of Directors of Franklin has adopted comprehensive corporate governance policies and processes designed to safeguard our business and protect the interests of our stockholders. Our Board of Directors is comprised of a diverse group of distinguished leaders.

The Corporate Governance Guidelines and committee charters adopted by our Board of Directors reflect regulatory requirements, New York Stock Exchange listing standards and applicable law. We are committed to ensuring a culture of compliance with our corporate governance standards and requirements. Learn more about the Franklin Resources Board of Directors and our commitment to Corporate Governance.

Code of Ethics and Business Conduct

Our Code of Ethics and Business Conduct is a roadmap for how we expect all Franklin Templeton employees to work with integrity and respect the trust that fund shareholders and company stockholders have placed in us. The code demands that all officers, directors and employees conduct themselves in a lawful, honest and ethical manner. It summarizes the values, principles and practices that guide how we conduct our business. Learn more about our Code of Ethics and Business Conduct.

The company provides a Compliance and Ethics Hotline for reporting legal or ethical violations and complaints regarding accounting, internal accounting controls or auditing matters. The hotline is maintained by an independent third-party company to ensure confidentiality and the firm has a policy in place to protect those who report any misconduct (commonly known as “whistleblower protection”).

In addition, the company has a corporate Ombudsman to whom all employees may convey concerns about business matters that they believe might involve matters of ethics or questionable practices.

Compliance

The culture of compliance at Franklin Templeton starts from the top, with support from senior management and oversight by the firm’s Chief Compliance Officer. Franklin Templeton’s Global Compliance Group is responsible for ensuring that the firm has the appropriate processes and procedures in place to comply with the extensive and complex, overlapping and frequently changing rules and regulatory requirements applicable to the firm and the funds we manage around the world. The team works with business unit management to make sure that each business unit's compliance program has strong controls and is operating effectively.

Maintaining and developing a culture of compliance in a highly regulated and varied global environment is a complex task. The growth within Global Compliance has mirrored the company’s growth in countries around the world to ensure that local regulatory requirements are met. Less developed regulations in some markets have provided the firm with the opportunity to play a crucial role in working with local regulators to explore global best practices that can potentially influence and improve the development of future regulations in such markets.

Compliance Education and Training

The objective of Compliance Education at Franklin Templeton is to provide employees across the globe with learning opportunities and obligations that will enable them to act in the most ethical manner. It is intended to support their ability and enhance their understanding of various subject matters so that they can act in compliance with the Franklin Templeton standards of honesty and integrity, and with a strong commitment to adhering to our internal practices and policies.

A cross-functional group of Compliance and Training experts within Franklin Templeton form the Compliance Education Team. This team works with compliance entities globally to ensure that Franklin Templeton's regulatory training requirements are met each year. These regulatory requirements may be specific to an employee’s job duties, their access to certain system applications, or to the country in which they reside, or they may describe common standards and expectations that apply to all employees.

Enterprise Risk Management

Risk management is a critical element of Franklin Templeton’s everyday business activities and takes place at all levels of our organization. In order to ensure, however, that risks are viewed and managed appropriately across the global enterprise, Franklin Templeton has an Enterprise Risk Management Committee that consists of the direct reports to the CEO and their risk representatives. This committee is responsible for facilitating the identification, assessment, monitoring and reporting of key risks across the company.

The Enterprise Risk Management Committee is supported by dedicated risk management staff responsible for maintaining enterprise risk management policies, procedures and standards; conducting a formal enterprise-wide risk assessment process and annual risk forum with company wide risk representatives to validate and update the key risks; ensuring frequent reviews by the committee of the identified key risks, controls and monitoring programs; and reporting key risk measures, metrics and trends. In addition, the Chair of the Enterprise Risk Management Committees meets quarterly with Franklin Templeton’s Audit Committee and annually with its Board of Directors to discuss Enterprise Risk Management processes, findings and trends.

Anti–Money Laundering Program

Franklin Templeton is firmly committed to international efforts to combat money laundering and the funding of terrorist and criminal activities, and as such it makes every effort to remain in full compliance with all applicable anti–money laundering (“AML”) and anti–terrorist financing (“ATF”) laws, rules and standards adopted in the jurisdictions in which it does business. Learn more about our Anti-Money Laundering & Sanctions Programs.

We believe that the investments we make on behalf of our clients are helping to create opportunities for economic growth around the world, and our ability to succeed is dependent upon serving our clients and delivering strong results. To do this, we combine our disciplined investment approach with global reach and a fundamental belief that if you take care of your clients, they will take care of you.

Investment Expertise

We offer our clients a valuable perspective, shaped by over 70 years of experience. We are a leader in global investing, with on-the-ground research capabilities around the world, and a strong global service platform. Franklin Templeton offers more than 200 investment strategies under the Franklin, Templeton, Franklin Mutual Series, Bissett, Fiduciary Trust and Darby Overseas brand names globally.

Our independent investment platforms offer time-tested expertise, with distinct investment focuses from tax-free income to core equity to global investing. In our experience, a long-term approach is best because investment decisions are made based on a company’s fundamentals and long-term growth potential, rather than on daily news and “noise.” We pride ourselves on being disciplined investors. We want to be known for adhering to our investment goals and staying true to our investment approach—regardless of market trends. Learn more about the Franklin Templeton Story.

Comprehensive Investment Risk Management

Managing risk is a fundamental part of our approach to investing, and has been since our firm was founded in 1947. Our integrated, disciplined approach seeks to look at risk from every angle and at every phase of the investment life cycle. Learn more about Investment Risk Management at Franklin Templeton.

Customer Service

We want our clients to feel confident that we manage their money with the highest levels of care and integrity in the industry. Quality service is an essential component of the value we offer clients. Our philosophy of service is very simple: we strive to understand what our clients need, and we work to make it easy for them to do business with us.

As our business has grown, we’ve continued to build an integrated global service platform that can adapt quickly and cohesively. With Transfer Agent operations located on three continents, our aim is to process globally and service locally to provide consistently high levels of service to our customers around the world.

High quality, shared information about the customer is the basis for a seamless service experience. Whether the customer touch point is a visit from a wholesaler, an online service, or a call to a phone representative in our Transfer Agent, we strive to add value at every step for our customers.

Privacy

When shareholders invest, they are entrusting us to protect their sensitive information while we help them achieve their financial goals. We place a high priority on maintaining information security to protect our customers and their investments.

To ensure that our shareholders understand our commitment to their privacy, our Privacy Notice is sent to all new shareholders and annually to existing shareholders. This document outlines our approach to safeguarding our shareholders’ confidential information including how our Transfer Agent manages “non-public personal” information, our disclosure policy, and employee confidentiality and system security.

Environmental, Social and Governance Issues

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues have become increasingly important to companies worldwide as they seek to balance organizational goals with the expectations of their stakeholders in an increasingly complex operating environment. When companies manage those stakeholder relationships effectively, they often can be more successful at managing risk and capturing opportunities—placing them in a better position for long-term success.

Franklin Templeton investment management teams perform extensive bottom-up investment analysis, employing rigorous and comprehensive processes to assess both the risk and return potential of the investments they consider. The depth of our research provides us with comprehensive insights into the many factors that affect the value of an investment, which may include ESG issues. Consistent with their status as independent investment platforms, each investment manager determines the extent to which various research inputs are included and weighted in their investment decisions.

Demonstrating our commitment to ESG, we are signatories of the UN Principles for Responsible Investing (UNPRI) and the UK Stewardship Code. Click to view the FTI 2019 RI Transparency Report.

Proxy Voting

With years of experience, Franklin Templeton’s investment managers understand that their proxy voting decisions may affect the value of shareholdings. Each investment manager is committed to fulfilling their fiduciary duty to vote proxies in the best interests of their fund shareholders. The proxy voting policies and procedures serve as a guideline for proxy voting decisions and detail the process by which such decisions are made. Both the proxy voting policies and voting records are publicly available to ensure transparency for fund shareholders. Learn more about Proxy Voting Policies and Voting Records.

As a premier global investment management organization, we know that our business is dependent upon having a high performing, committed workforce. We focus on engaging our employees, cultivating their skills and talents, and retaining them as engaged members of our global team.

Diversity & Inclusion

We know that talented, diverse teams drive better business results. Valuing our employees for their uniqueness─abilities, life experiences, challenges and ideas─helps drive engagement, innovation and builds trust.

By harnessing the power of our diverse workforce, we maximize the potential of each individual employee and create a strategic advantage for Franklin Templeton.

Setting the Structure

We actively educate our leaders in managing in an inclusive way. Senior leaders from our Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) Executive Council serve as champions sponsoring diversity initiatives and advising on policy. Our dedicated D&I intranet site provides employees information on promoting an inclusive culture, exploring unconscious bias, tips on how to be a D&I champion and a wide variety of learning resources.

Employee-led business resource groups help foster a culture of inclusion where employees connect, discuss and educate. They promote inclusion by supporting employees in bringing their whole selves to work and gaining a greater sense of shared experience with colleagues and allies.

Sustaining an Inclusive Culture

D&I goes beyond hiring. Organizations need to cultivate a respectful climate where all employees are heard and can thrive. Learn more about Diversity & Inclusion.

Employee Engagement

We seek to engage our people in ways that help them find personal meaning in their work, provide positive interpersonal support, and ensure that they are operating in a productive work environment.

We recognize that motivation and engagement drivers are unique to each individual, so we offer a wide variety of ideas, options and programs. We regularly check-in with employees on enterprise sentiment and engagement and create live forums for leaders to hear directly from employees, as this reinforces a culture of open feedback. The creation of our Workforce Engagement Tips and Tools resource, the I am Franklin Templeton peer recognition program, and Paid Time-Off for Volunteering benefit are in response to feedback provided by employees around the globe.

Skills & Career Development

At Franklin Templeton, personal and professional development is essential. We believe it strengthens our company and helps our people meet any challenge. Our employee development approach centers around these three avenues—Experience, Exposure, and Education.

Experience – We strongly advocate the value of learning through on-the-job activities.

Exposure – We believe in exposing you to opportunities for networking, creating mentor relationships, and obtaining feedback from a variety of sources.

Education – You will take part in structured learning solutions for core and specific competency development in both web-based and instructor-led programs.

Total Rewards

In addition to the dynamic professional environment at Franklin Templeton, we strive to ensure that our employees have access to a competitive and valuable set of Total Rewards—the mix of both monetary and non-monetary rewards provided in recognition of their time, talents, efforts and results.

Our Total Rewards include:

• Health, wellness and risk benefits to protect and restore health and wellness for employees and their families
• Holiday and time-off family friendly benefits, and employee programs that support work-life integration
• Ways to get involved in, and give back to, our communities, including paid time off for volunteering
• Retirement savings, stock purchase and other incentive programs to help employees plan for the future
• Learning, development and career advancement opportunities
• Support for pursuing certifications, external education and degree programs
• Performance management that helps employees set personal performance objectives that are aligned with corporate goals.

Learn more about working at Franklin Templeton in the Careers section.

As an investment management firm that has predominantly office based functions, we have limited direct impact on the environment. We do, however, seek to limit the effects of our operations on the environment, and we are increasingly seeing the influence of these issues within the investment world.

Environmental Policy Statement

The Franklin Resources Environmental Policy Statement sets forth our approach to managing our environmental impact. Download the Franklin Resources Environmental Policy Statement  (PDF, 350k)

Carbon Disclosure Project

Franklin Templeton participates in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), annually measuring and reporting on carbon emissions, as well as risks and opportunities for our business due to the effects of climate change. The firm’s current response, which is publicly available on the CDP website, includes comprehensive details on our approach to climate change.

Environmentally Conscious Building Features

Our General Services team strives to provide a safe, comfortable and efficient environment to enable employees to work productively. They accomplish this while also utilizing building features and technology that limit the impact on the environment. Franklin Templeton is proud that a recent building project in Poznan, Poland was designed to LEED Standard (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) and certified as LEED Platinum, the highest rating available.

We employ the following approaches in the facilities we operate:

Our real estate development and renovation projects seek to minimize energy consumption.

For example:

• Buildings utilize sensors and/or timers on lights, low voltage and LED lighting, high efficiency bulbs/tubes and electronic ballasts to limit energy use.
• Our equipment replacement process includes evaluation of new products and features that improve energy and water efficiency.
• In our two new data centers in California we utilized a new more energy-efficient approach to data center design and also invested in building improvements to increase energy efficiency.
• Franklin Templeton obtains electricity from fuel cells installed at our San Mateo headquarters and Poznan, Poland buildings that powers all campus lighting.
• Our buildings in Rancho Cordova, Stockton & San Mateo (two new buildings) in California, St. Petersburg, Florida and Poznan, Poland feature cool roof technology to reflect warming sunlight, which reduces the need for energy-intensive cooling.
• Newly constructed buildings in San Mateo, California and Poznan, Poland utilize solar panels.

We use environmental management systems to monitor air quality and energy usage.

For example:

• Building management systems have off-peak settings that turn off/reduce lighting and HVAC outside of normal business hours.
• Detailed energy usage data allows staff to audit buildings and make continuous improvements to reduce energy use.

We continually look for new ways to reduce the use of water in our daily operations.

For example:

• Low flow water fixtures on plumbing systems and landscaping moisture sensors limit water use. New construction in San Mateo, California and Poznan, Poland also includes low flow water heaters and toilets.
• Our St. Petersburg, Florida site uses reclaimed water for all landscaping.
• Our water management system in India utilizes three on-site water wells for landscape irrigation and includes our own water reclamation facility to recycle all water used at the site. In addition, water collection systems channel rain and irrigation runoff water back into the ground. New construction in San Mateo, California and Poznan, Poland use sustainable landscape design including extensive drip irrigation for maximum water retention.

We recycle and encourage employees to extend recycling programs to offices, cafeterias and community activities.

For example:

• The firm facilitates recycling at all owned facilities in the United States, and works with building landlords to promote their recycling options at all leased locations.
• In addition to standard recyclable items, some Franklin Templeton sites also facilitate recycling of used batteries, eyeglasses, mobile phones, and other items that are donated to community nonprofit organizations.

We promote the use of sustainable materials and supplies.

For example:

• Interior renovations incorporate sustainable design and products with green labels or certification, including low VOC, low emission, renewable/recycled content, and locally sourced materials in construction. For example, our Stockton Data Center used recycled carpets and fabrics. New construction in San Mateo, California and Poznan, Poland used sustainable materials for windows, insulations, carpets, and fabrics.
• For construction projects, we specify sustainable materials and source them locally where we can.
• Cleaning processes incorporate green cleaning products and recycled content paper goods.

Environmentally Conscious Business Practices

Franklin Templeton also manages the firm’s environmental impact by supporting sustainable business practices across the various functional areas of the company.

Sustainable business practices at Franklin Templeton include:

• In addition to using recycled content paper whenever possible, our in-house Publishing Department uses soy-based inks and integrated computer-to-plate technology (reducing use of film and hard metals), recycles aluminum plates, keeps chemical logs to track use, and has eliminated or limited use of harmful chemicals wherever possible.
• We encourage employees to limit the use of paper through use of copiers that print double-sided, scanners to send files electronically, email and online communications, and paperless technology solutions. In addition, a campaign by the Green Team reduced paper use by over 25% at Franklin Templeton’s corporate headquarters.
• The firm also promotes paperless options for mutual fund shareholders by offering electronic delivery of statements, fund prospectuses, annual reports, proxies and tax documents. Learn more or enroll. (U.S. Residents)
• Franklin encourages employees to consider videoconferencing and teleconferencing as alternatives to travel.
• Franklin Templeton contracts with a global vendor to provide environmentally responsible e-waste recycling for decommissioned computer equipment, phones, and other electronic equipment. The vendor has a zero-landfill policy where materials are reused or further refined for eventual re-use in manufacturing.

Investments

As we see societies evolve to respond to climate change, there are widespread changes to regulations and industries that impact the global investment community. From carbon trading markets to new green products, certain industries and geographies are seeing real financial costs and opportunities emerge. These issues are playing out in financial markets around the world, and can impact the risk and return profile of an investment.

Our investment professionals employ a bottom up approach and use fundamental analysis to assess all risk factors associated with each investment opportunity, which can include issues related to climate change and controlling environmental impact. This fundamental analysis allows our investment professionals to identify both risks and opportunities that are emerging due to climate change.

At Franklin Templeton, we strive to be recognized as a responsible global corporate leader, working to support and enrich the social, economic and educational wellbeing of the communities where we live, work and do business. Through direct contributions and the efforts of our dedicated employee volunteers, we support hundreds of nonprofit organizations and schools around the world every year.

Global Citizenship at Franklin Templeton is responsible for the strategic management of all of the company’s charitable relationships, ensuring they align with organizational priorities, meet community needs and reflect stakeholder interests.

Employee Volunteering

Franklin Templeton’s global volunteer program, Involved, empowers employees to use their time, talent and skills to make positive changes in our communities. Led by the passion and dedication of employees in our local offices, Franklin Templeton volunteers take part in more than 400 community service projects annually. If you represent a nonprofit organization located near a Franklin Templeton office and would like to discuss volunteer opportunities that may be of interest to our employees, please contact involved@franklintempleton.com. Due to the volume of inquiries we receive, we are only able to respond to those that have strong potential for partnership.

Involved Impact Days

Each June, Franklin Templeton celebrates Involved Impact Days, our global dedicated month of volunteering where employees around the world put in an extra effort to participate in community service projects. This annual tradition reflects the diverse interests of Franklin Templeton employees, and is a true demonstration of the inspiring partnerships that have been created with community organizations all over the world.

Corporate Giving

As part of our commitment to enhancing the communities where our employees live and work, Franklin Templeton supports nonprofit organizations through a variety of programs, with an emphasis on supporting causes that our important to our employees.

We strive to make it easier for our staff to get involved in their communities by offering a volunteer paid time off (VPTO) policy, a global Matching Gifts and Donations for Doers program, as well as a community grants initiative. In addition, the company sponsors a select number of charitable events and activities, on a proactive basis and by invitation only. Please contact giving@franklintempleton.com with any questions.