Enabling the transition to a sustainable future

18-02-12 10:00 | Sustainability | About Nordea

For Nordea, sustainability means taking responsibility for the impact we have on our surroundings. To do so we need to transform our business and work actively to integrate environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues into our everyday business.

We want to use our skills and expertise to build trust and make a positive difference to individuals, society and the environment.

“Sustainability is part of everything we do at Nordea. It is about mitigating risks, improving resilience and creating opportunities. It is, quite simply, the right thing to do,” says Casper von Koskull, Nordea’s President and Group CEO.

Over the last couple of years, we have strengthened our efforts to integrate sustainability into our business activities as well as in relation to our role in society. Our 2017 Sustainability Report, published today, lays out our roadmap to a more sustainable future

“As the leading bank in the Nordic region, the tenth largest economy in the world, we play a key role in the transition towards a sustainable future through the impact we have on the societies in which we operate,” says Erik Feldt, the newly appointed head of Community Engagement at Nordea. “We take this role very seriously.”

New sustainability goals

In 2017 we continued our journey towards taking a more proactive approach to integrating sustainability into all of Nordea’s core operations, policies and processes. During the year, we launched our first group-wide position statement on climate change as well as a group-wide Sustainability Policy with a clear focus on investments, financing and advice.

We further developed our community engagement efforts as well as our capabilities within ESG evaluation, green bonds and green loans. We have taken a holistic approach to the UN global Sustainable Development Goals, realising that they are all crucial for achieving sustainable development and are therefore also relevant for us.

In 2016 we set nine short-term sustainability goals for 2017 to be better equipped to meet the sustainability challenges ahead. By the end of 2017, we had achieved six of our nine goals, helped by focused efforts well-anchored in the business and supported by our board and top management. We will continue to work on the remaining three goals in 2018 and have added three new goals that need to be addressed this year (see fact box below).

“The financial industry is moving fast within the field of sustainability and the expectations from our stakeholders are rapidly changing and increasing,” says Sasja Beslik, head of Group Sustainable Finance at Nordea. “We are moving quickly to meet these expectations.”

Documents

Fact box

Our six short-term sustainability goals for 2018*:

Enhance the ESG screening tools for responsible investment, responsible financing and responsible procurement
Launch a risk management framework to identify key risks in the value chain with a focus on human rights, labour rights, anti-corruption measures and the environment
Establish a KPI framework
Continue implementing the updated Sustainability Policy and the principles for sustainable financing, investment and advice
Establish a baseline for climate change and human rights related risks throughout the value chain.
Launch position statements and guidelines within relevant areas, e.g. defence and shipping.

*The first three goals have been carried over from 2017, while the last three are new.