Sustainability in banking

By UniCredit

Highlights include the development of a sustainability framework, the strengthening of stakeholder relationships, a continuous investment in people and the promotion of environmental sustainability.

Our belief that sustainability is a vital element to how UniCredit does business was translated into our Sustainability Framework. This framework is based on five key-pillars: customer service excellence, clear governance, investing in people, a risk-reward culture, and value-added IT systems and operations.

We strengthened our relationship with stakeholders through a number of activities, including:

– Significant monitoring of customer satisfaction, with 500,000 customers interviewed and 11,000 mystery shopping visits across UniCredit.

– Dialogue with consumer associations to address innovative banking products and transparent communications.

– Dialogue throughout UniCredit’s territories and through the I Territori del Sistema Italia project; 343 interviews with local stakeholders and 2,700 network employees gave us a better understanding of local economic representatives’ expectations and perceptions

– New initiatives helping families and enterprises facing difficulty; Insieme 2009 allowed 7,700 households to stop making mortgage payments at no additional cost for a maximum of 12 months, while the Impresa Italia project provided €1.5 billion as a support for small and medium-sized enterprises.

– A renewed commitment to the development of local communities, with €44.1 million in sponsorships (excluding the UEFA Champions League), €27.5 million in donations and €2.4 in support of UniCredit’s Territorial Committees.

In 2009, we focused on investing in our employees and on promoting diversity. Our commitment to equal opportunities and non-discrimination was demonstrated by the signing of the Joint Declaration on Equal Opportunities and Non-Discrimination by UniCredit and the European Works Council.

The proportion of women who have participated in our programs for talent enhancement (Talent Management Review) and leadership development (Executive Development Plan) increased, from 39 and 17 percent in 2008 to 42 and 19 percent in 2009, respectively.

UniCredit also continued investing in the professional development and training of employees. Although the economic downturn led to cost reductions, in 2009 we delivered 30 hours of training per capita.

Our commitment to environmental sustainability included the completion of a carbon inventory across our entire organization, aimed at establishing an accurate carbon footprint as a baseline for establishing future reduction targets. Moreover, the percentage of valuable materials separated and recycled in our offices in Italy reached 95 percent of total waste production.

Meanwhile, UniCredit further developed its Environmental Sustainability Program (ESP) in partnership with WWF. This partnership has sought to revise credit policies for environmentally sensitive industries, fighting climate change through the management of direct and financed emissions, enhancing employee environmental awareness and promote positive behavior.

In 2010, we will establish a sustainability scorecard for managing and monitoring our overall sustainability performance based on correlating factors between sustainability and financial performance indicators.

Lastly, in 2009, UniCredit was again included in major international sustainability indexes and rankings, which measure corporate performance and progress from an economic, social, ethical and environmental perspective. These included the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, the FTSE 4 Good Index Series, the Ethibel Sustainability Index, and the oekom research and ECPI® Indices.