At UniCredit, we leverage our financial knowledge to promote sustainable approaches to the environment in all of our markets.

 

 

Environmental sustainability and networking

 

Jointly developing sustainability strategies

In 2009, the UniCredit further developed its Environmental Sustainability Program (ESP) in partnership with WWF Italy. Signed in 2008 in Italy and extended across Europe in 2009, the partnership now involves WWF International and encompasses Germany, Slovakia and Poland. The ESP is led directly by members of the Corporate Sustainability Unit’s environmental sustainability team, who cooperate with WWF personnel in all relevant fields.

 

 

Awareness-raising activities

To be truly sustainable, a bank needs the support of all its employees. Thus, we work to communicate our ideas about sustainability and the environment through a wide variety of internal channels.

 

To further our employees’ environmental awareness, we have developed an innovative product to promote energy efficiency in partnership with the WWF. House Efficiency provides subsidized loans that are complemented by energy consulting services and supported by an expert energy service desk.

 

Moreover, in 2009, a web-based learning tool called the Green Box was made available to employees groupwide. Designed to provide users with a better understanding of environmental issues and what UniCredit is doing to address them, Green Box also suggests ways to reduce our individual environmental footprints. In March 2009, we participated in a worldwide WWF climate change event, Earth Hour, by turning off the lights in some of our main buildings. We further promoted the core message of the event via our internal communications network, inviting all employees to join in the initiative.

 

 

Emissions offsets

 

Offsetting CO2 emissions

We continue our policy of offsetting CO2 emissions generated by the production of UniCredit group’s consolidated quarterly, biannual and annual reports and accounts and the annual Sustainability Report. This is accomplished by contributing to reforestation projects in Italy. We also purchase carbon credits to offset CO2 emissions associated with the proceedings of our annual East Forum.

 

 

Renewable energy and energy efficiency

The UniCredit 10% project aims to reduce energy consumption in Italian buildings by 10 percent from 2007 levels by the end of 2010, through space optimization and by moving operations out of energy-inefficient buildings.

 

The Kill the Kilowatt-Hour contest at UniCredit Real Estate provides an award for the best grassroots energy efficiency proposal made by an employee.

 

 

Mobility management

Since mobility is indispensable to UniCredit group’s business activities, we focus on traveling efficiently to reduce our environmental footprint. We aim to cut back on unnecessary business travel and to rely on more environmentally friendly forms of transport.

 

For further details on our environmental partnerships, please see the Partnerships - Environment section.