As a responsible actor in the finance industry, we recognize that our operations have versatile impacts on our stakeholders and surrounding world. Our sustainability strategy aims at increasing the positive and decreasing the negative impacts on environment and society among others through our products, services, processes and partnerships.
Main themes of our sustainability strategy
The five main themes of the sustainability strategy are responsibility for the customer’s financial wellbeing, responsibility for the wellbeing of the community, responsibility for sustainable financing and products, responsibility for sustainable growth and good governance, and responsibility for the environment and the climate. The sustainability strategy also specifies the UN Sustainable Development Goals that are supported by the Savings Banks Group’s sustainability efforts.
The UN member states have agreed on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and an action programme that serves as a guideline for global development efforts until 2030. There are 17 SDGs in total. In the Savings Banks Group’s sustainability strategy, the Board of Directors and Management Group of the Savings Banks’ Union Coop have approved the five UN SDGs that are the most important for our sustainability efforts. They are SDG 12 (responsible consumption), SDG 8 (decent work and economic growth), SDG 9 (sustainable industry, innovation and infrastructure), SDG 16 (peace, justice and strong institutions) and SDG 13 (climate action).
The main themes of the sustainability strategy are based on the material sustainability themes and sustainability roadmap of Savings Banks Group.
The Savings Banks Group’s materiality matrix and material sustainability themes
With regard to stakeholders, the materiality analysis was updated by conducting an extensive stakeholder survey in spring 2023. The respondents were requested to assess sustainability themes that are material for the Savings Bank’s business impacts. The themes may have a material impact on either the Savings Bank’s own operations or activities that are external to the Savings Bank. The themes were based on the themes used in our previous sustainability reporting, which was based on the Global Reporting Initiative framework, and they were supplemented with themes aligned with the CSRD. A total of 4,808 representatives of private and corporate customers, the management of savings banks, personnel in employment relationships, suppliers of goods and services and other external stakeholders and representatives of the management of the Savings Banks Group responded to the online survey. Aside from the survey, stakeholders were not consulted in other ways.
The sustainability themes were examined by assessing issues of economic, ecological and social responsibility with regard to the features of the Savings Banks Group’s business operations, including business relationships. To provide more perspective with respect to business relationships, we also had partners, customers and investors, for example, participate in the stakeholder survey designed to assess the material themes pertaining to our impacts.
In spring 2023, we organised a review with the Management Group of the Savings Banks’ Union Coop regarding the materiality of the sustainability themes and the materiality of the related sustainability risks and opportunities. Examples of the background information we used in identifying and assessing the material impacts included the stakeholder survey and general information concerning the financial sector, such as the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board’s assessment of financially material sustainability themes in the financial sector.
Based on the materiality analysis, the Savings Banks Group’s material themes of sustainability impacts are as follows:
- Responsible and sustainable finance: lending, investment and solutions
- Customer data protection, information security and physical security
- Customer satisfaction, understanding of customer needs and expertise
- Wellbeing at work, equality and diversity
- Good leadership, corporate culture and highly competent own employees
- Promoting the customer’s financial wellbeing, growth and financial literacy
- Solvency and sustainable growth
- Sustainability in the principles and operating methods steering our business
- Climate change mitigation and adaptation
The material themes of the Savings Banks Group’s sustainability impacts are shown in the materiality matrix below, where the vertical axis describes the impact on stakeholders and the horizontal axis describes the current or potential impact on the Savings Banks Group and the Savings Banks Group’s impact on society. The significance for stakeholders has been assessed as a whole, and the weight of individual stakeholders is not reflected in the matrix.
