The concept of sustainable operations should penetrate all structures of a company, which in the case of Addiko Bank is confirmed by initiatives which relate, to a lesser or greater extent, in a direct or indirect way, to all employees, our cooperation with clients and community relations.
Your bank has its own clearly formulated ESG strategy?
― At Addiko Bank, we have a clearly conceived ESG Strategy that represents a framework for our operations in the ESG domain, paying equal respect to all three components, E and S and G.
Through our ESG Strategy, we not only provide a framework and direction for our business, but in so doing also impact on the awareness of our employees, but also the awareness of our clients. We consider raising awareness as being crucial at this juncture when a seemingly new field is impacting all aspects of our daily lives, both business and private, becoming an inextricable part of life.
How do you implement your ESG strategy?
― Under the scope of the ESG Strategy, Addiko Bank made the ESG concept formal through 15 initiatives, devoting five initiatives to each component, and working continuously to fulfil them through its operations, because these defined initiatives form an integral part of the Addiko Bank business culture. Addiko Bank launched its digitalisation process before the media even started addressing the ESG concept, rendering its services more accessible and environmentally acceptable. We are continuously adapting to the needs of our clients, alongside simplifying the process of submitting requests, shortening implementation times and continuously advancing our IT infrastructure and protection system.
With the goal of increasing its climate neutrality, Addiko Bank is replacing its existing ICE vehicles with electric and hybrid vehicles, optimising its business space, implementing a hybrid work model and forming green partnerships, while taking into consideration No-Go branches of industry, thus also reducing its carbon footprint through the lending process.
Addiko Bank launched its digitalisation process before the media even started addressing the ESG concept, rendering its services more accessible and environmentally acceptable
Addiko Bank supports social equality at all levels, taking care to consider diversity and inclusion, fostering a culture of appointing significant numbers of women to management positions and maintaining a continuous commitment to employees’ personal development and wellbeing through professional development and support in the balance between business and private life, but also through community support in the form of humanitarian work and programmes for volunteering employees.
By nurturing the Tone at the Top principle, through the promoting and protecting of financial literacy, lifelong education, adequately established corporate bodies and respect for the existing Code of Business Conduct and Ethics, but also thanks to its memberships in associations dedicated to the ESG mission, Addiko Bank enables the smooth functioning of the ESG concept, through well-established corporate governance.
Do Addiko’s sustainable operations goals apply to the entire Group?
― Addiko Group sets goals that are modified very slightly at the level of each member, in accordance with the market on which the member operates and the extent to which it is possible to realise set goals. They remain unchanged in principle and, most importantly, the end result is the same and relates, among other things, to reducing the carbon footprint and promoting gender equality and the wellbeing of employees and the community in which we live. ∙
