Friday 04 June 2021
This year’s World Environment Day marks the start of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. At UniCredit we are committed to doing our part in this journey to REIMAGINE. RECREATE. RESTORE. our environment.
5 June is World Environment Day and the launch of a global call to action to prevent, halt, and reverse the degradation of ecosystems worldwide, led by the UN Environment Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization. This year’s mission is to REIMAGINE. RECREATE. RESTORE. the environment and make a concrete change in our everyday actions. At UniCredit we are proud to support the 2021 #GenerationRestoration call to action.
The UN Decade has identified 10 actions to help restore the global ecosystem. See below how UniCredit is committed to supporting each of these.
Global dialogue and collaboration are key to driving environmental sustainability. At UniCredit, we are committed to playing our part in the transition to a low carbon and more sustainable world. In line with this, we are a proud to be Premier Partner of the World Climate Summit (Investment COP), taking place on the side-lines of the COP26 in Glasgow this November.
Restoration and preservation require significant resources. At UniCredit, we continue to support our clients, communities, and partners with relevant ESG solutions and products. Furthermore, our Social Impact Banking programme is committed to financing companies with a social mission and those with a clear ESG orientation.
Our ESG strategy is based on concrete goals and KPIs, as we work to further embed sustainability across the business and minimise our own environmental impact. In 2020, UniCredit achieved the target of a 60 per cent reduction versus its 2008 GHG emissions with the long-term target of an 80 per cent reduction by 2030. We are also on track with our paperless programme with the aim to be completely paperless by 2023. Furthermore, by 2023, all single-use plastic will be removed from the canteens and break areas in our buildings and all our electricity consumption in Italy, Germany and Austria will come from renewable sources.
We celebrate and encourage action on sustainability across the Group. A great example of this has been UniCredit’s support of the Keep Clean & Run eco-marathon around Earth Day aimed at collective action to clean the environment from abandoned rubbish, as well as our collaboration with Treedom to create the UniCredit Forest of around 90, 000 new trees.
Sustainability is part of our DNA, which means we constantly engage colleagues and raise awareness on ESG topics, for example through our Group-wide sustainability community on our internal social media. Furthermore, in Germany, we have been the first bank to launch a Sustainable Finance Experts programme to provide tailored training to our employees on a broad scale. and similar programmes are also being explored in our other markets.
Considerable research and investments are required to identify the best practices to restore our planet. To help accelerate collective efforts in this direction, UniCredit belongs to several institutional and international working groups committed to drive sustainability progress, including the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures, Principles for Responsible Banking, and the OECD Business for Inclusive Growth Coalition.
While thousands of conservation and restoration initiatives are already underway, the area of ESG remains complex and requires data and insights to make informed decisions. There is no one size fits all solution. Leveraging on our sustainable finance sector expertise, UniCredit set up the Sustainable Finance Advisory team with a dedicated mandate to advise clients on ESG financing through a holistic approach.
Artists worldwide are increasingly conscious of environmental sustainability and UniCredit continues its long tradition of supporting art and culture as drivers of the sustainable development of our communities. We support non-profit organisations, promote the cultural development of young students and researchers, support sport and physical activity, and put our resources and infrastructure at the service of communities in need of support due to emergency situations.
Future generations will be the most impacted by the destruction of our ecosystems. They also stand to benefit the most from environmental restoration. This means their opinions must be heard. To make sure this happens, UniCredit set up its Millennial Board composed of employees aged from 22 to32 , working to challenge pre-conceived patterns and raise awareness of new generations’ view
Environmental restoration and preservation are all about working together. The more we listen to each other and learn from great initiatives taking place, the more progress we can make, together. We encourage our colleagues to share their sustainability ideas and remain committed to staying close to our communities to support their needs in all the markets where we operate.
Restoration can happen in many ways to return an ecosystem to its original state. At UniCredit we are proud to support the 2021 #GenerationRestoration call to action