Our Sustainability Approach

Since we commenced our operations on April 13, 1954, we proceed to deliver essential contributions to the growth and development of the country’s economy with the mission of continuously increasing the values we add to our customers, employees, shareholders, and society by effectively and efficiently managing the assets and values entrusted to us by the strength we derive from the foundation culture.

Today, with the management and working mentality required by modern banking, we serve our customers through the products and solutions we offer in Corporate, Commercial, SME, Local Governments and Agricultural Banking, Retail, and Private Banking. In addition to our core banking products, we are also engaged in investment banking and capital market activities; we have been offering financial products widely ranging from leasing to factoring services to our customers through our financial subsidiaries with the high technology required by the age. Besides, we continue to play an active role in international markets with the long-term and affordable funds we provide from abroad.

As a long-established institution aiming to make a difference in society with our banking activities and our social responsibility projects, our sustainability approach is to leave a more livable world to future generations with our efforts. In this context, the authority to coordinate our sustainability practices effectively and swiftly lies within the Sustainability Committee, which is our Bank’s senior decision-making and responsible body. Believing that faster decision-making will add dynamism to our sustainability journey, we established the Sustainability Working Group as the supporting structure that operates under this committee. Our Committee monitors performance by integrating these strategies and policies into the Bank’s activities and formulating sustainability strategies and policies in economic, social, and environmental areas. Additionally, we continue our sustainability efforts through the Sustainability Service, Environmental Management Service, and Environmental and Social Impact Analysis Department. You can find detailed information about our policies here.

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We continue to play an active role in international markets with the long-term and cost-effective funds we provide from abroad.

First, we harmonized the Head Office units’ banking processes and all branches with the ISO 9001 Quality Management System. We documented them with the “ISO 9001: 2015 Quality Management System.” In addition, we have also documented that our banking activities minimized the direct impact on the environment in line with international standards by obtaining the ISO 14001: 2015 Environmental Management System certificate in 2017. In this context, we have ensured that all VakıfBank employees work in ISO 14001 certified buildings in 2021, with our certification studies, which we have been continuing since 2018. We succeeded to be the first bank in Turkey to establish the Integrated Management System (ISO 9001-ISO 14001-ISO 45001) and to receive the certificate after the Integrated Certification Audit by obtaining the ISO 45001 Occupational Health and Management System certificate. We successfully passed the 2021 interim audits and ensured the sustainability of the Integrated Management System. As VakıfBank, we also have an ISO 45001:2018 Occupational Health and Safety Management System Certificate. You can find detailed information about our certificates here.

We take part in international platforms with our sustainability efforts and lead the industry by breaking ground. We are the first Turkish public institution to announce its commitment to reduce carbon emissions by participating in the Science Based Targets initiative, which many international pioneering organizations lead to contribute to the fight against climate change, one of the most critical global environmental problems of today. Thus, we aim to bring international standards to our activities and continue integrating sustainability into our corporate strategy for a more livable future by increasing our environmental, social, and managerial performance. In this context, we have been participating in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) Climate Change Program since 2015 and share our climate change strategy, governance, risk management, and carbon emission amount and our targets on these issues with international investors and the public. We have also preserved our performance score, which was at level B, in 2021. In addition, as VakıfBank, we aim to play a role in managing water-related risks and raising awareness by supporting the CDP Water Program in 2022.

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We aim to support the CDP Water Program in 2022.

We offer our sustainability products, which constitute one of the most critical components of our sustainability approach, to our customers’ use to support socioeconomic development by taking into account all society segments. Thus, we ensure our customers’ strengthening and contribute to social development with the financial support we provide.

With the awareness that our most significant impact in the environmental and social field is through financing, we consider it our responsibility to evaluate the social and ecological implications of the projects we finance. We formed the Environmental and Social Impact Analysis Department in 2021 to keep a closer eye on this impact. We concentrate on evaluating the projects we finance through the Environmental and Social Risk Management System, which we expect to deploy in 2022, by identifying the environmental and social consequences caused by enterprises. We will first get project finance loans with a loan application amounting over USD 20 million. Then, in addition to project finance loans, we aim to include the entire loan portfolio (excluding retail loans) in this risk analysis process.

As a pioneering and active bank in international markets, with the awareness of the importance of sustainable banking in accessing international funding sources, we take essential steps, complete the necessary preparations, and seize opportunities depending on market conditions. We introduced the Sustainable Finance Framework Text in this regard to serve as a foundation for the issuance of Green Eurobonds (“Green Bonds”) and/or Sustainable Eurobonds (“Sustainable Bonds”). In December 2020, we issued the first sustainable Eurobond for USD 750 million, and in September 2021, we issued the second sustainable Eurobond amounting USD 500 million.

In April 2021, we signed the Bank’s first sustainable syndicated loan, amounting USD 1.1 billion. In November 2021, we renewed our second syndicated loan based on sustainable performance criteria amounting USD 650 million. Thus, we converted all of our syndicated loans into “Sustainable Syndicated” loans.

Besides, we carried out a study in line with the evaluation methodology of Sustainalytics, one of the leading independent global companies in providing Sustainable Banking, Environmental, Social, Corporate governance research, and rating services to investors. After this study, we achieved to improve our ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) risk rating score from 23.1 (medium risk) to 19.8 (low risk) in 2021, becoming one of the banks with the lowest risk rating in the banking sector.

We maintain our collaborations on national and international platforms within the scope of our efforts to create value in a sustainable economy, society, and environmental issues. We are among the UN Global Compact participants, the world’s largest sustainability initiative before the United Nations. We are the first Turkish public institution to sign the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs).

In addition, we have been selected, three times in a row, for the Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index (Bloomberg GEI), which evaluates the performances of companies to raise awareness about gender equality in all sectors around the World and to increase transparency.

We carried out a gender equality survey to hear all our employees’ views and expectations, including senior management, on gender equality, which is among the Sustainable Development Goals and has an important place on the agenda of the world and to identify areas that need improvement. In accordance with this survey, our Bank launched the Gender Equality Program, and the necessary coordination was made with the relevant departments to develop gender equality practices within the Bank and raise awareness at all organizational levels.

We attach importance to explaining our performance with transparency. As a result, we maintain our place in the index since 2014, when the BIST Sustainability Index was created. Since 2017, we have been involved in the FTSE4Good Emerging Markets Index, which responsible investors primarily follow.

In addition to our financial performance, we published our first Integrated Annual Report in 2020, which includes our approach and performance in economic, environmental, and social areas and our Bank’s value creation model. Our report, which has an important place in our communication with our stakeholders, is compatible with the Integrated Reporting Framework published by the Value Reporting Foundation.

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In September 2021, we issued a second sustainable Eurobond amounting USD 500 million.

Determining the Materiality

We define determining our materiality, as the starting point of our sustainability approach. With this perspective, during the first Integrated Annual Report studies in 2019, we shaped our material topics by taking our stakeholders’ opinions with the Stakeholder Dialogue studies that we conducted under the moderation of an external expert consultant organization. Details on the Stakeholder Dialogue 2019 process can be found in our 2019 Integrated Annual Report.

Based on the Stakeholder Dialogue analysis we conducted in 2019, we reassessed our materiality within the framework of our Bank’s strategy, global and sectoral trends, risks and opportunities, and our managers’ views. Besides, we have taken into account the internationally guiding principles and outputs in the field of sustainable development, such as the interviews we have with our managers in different units, trends that drive the industry, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, the United Nations Global Compact, CDP, Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).

In the light of these studies, we also evaluated our material Sustainable Development Goals that we resolved together with our material topics, and concluded our focus on Sustainable Development Goals as Quality Education, Gender Equality, Decent Work and Economic Growth, Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure and Reducing Inequalities.

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The Relation of Our Material Issues with Capital Components and UN Sustainable Development Goals*

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) being accepted by 193 member countries of the United Nations in 2015 is a call for action towards a common future for our planet. These goals are one of the guides among our sustainability approach. Within this scope, we care to contribute to UN SDGs with our operations.

We have determined our Priority Sustainable Development Goals as Quality Education, Gender Equality, Decent Work and Economic Growth, Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, Reducing Inequalities.