Managing environmental, social and governance risks
Standard Bank Group strives to increase the positive SEE impacts arising from our business activities and reduce negative impacts. We do this by managing environmental, social and governance risks and embedding a culture of responsible banking across the group.
Priority ESG issues in 2021 included enduring the alignment of the group’s strategy with the UN SDGs, UN Principles for Responsible Banking and and the Paris Climate Agreement. Work in this regard included embedding ESG considerations into group culture, client engagement and business unit strategies, integrating ESG risk management into non-financial risk and enterprise risk management frameworks, integrating ESG metrics into performance management and strengthening ESG skills at all levels, including board level. The group made significant progress on assessing climate-related risk and providing associated disclosures, and in developing and publishing a group climate policy and targets, which seek to balance Africa’s need for affordable energy with climate considerations and the need for a just transition. We also undertook a review of frameworks and processes to strengthen the institutionalisation of an ethical, client-focused culture and ensure effectiveness of controls, while strengthening third party risk management and cybersecurity and resilience.
Standard Bank's ESG scores
Rating agencies and index providers provide various types of ESG performance information on publicly listed companies. Standard Bank Group aims to improve our score on selected ESG indices. We have included such improvements as a performance metric under our SEE value driver. Our priority ratings include:
Environmental, social and governance report