CBM stands up for sustainable development
12.12.2019
We are glad to announce that the Bank's Sustainable Development Workgroup created as part of its initiative to integrate corporate social responsibility (CSR) principles into its operations met for the first time on 11 December. The CSR agenda has been endorsed at all levels of the Bank's corporate governance, and it not only tallies with the management's values, but also has a bearing on accessibility of capital.
The meeting united officers from subdivisions that are keen and able to contribute to sustainable development at the Bank's level. The participants presented specific proposals promoting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals concerning economic growth, environment, education, well-being, healthcare, etc.
The meeting was opened and moderated by Mikhail Kuznetsov, Advisor to the Supervisory Board, who has 15-year international corporate governance consulting experience. He noted that the Workgroup launch is a big step on our common road to turning the Bank into a socially and environmentally active and responsible company, and, importantly, this goal is firmly supported and promoted not only at the level of the Bank's employees and managers, but also at the level of its Supervisory Board and shareholders.
The Workgroup discussed a number of initiatives proposed to advance the UN SDGs and expand the Bank's contribution to the achievement of a sustainable future. A road map to implement them was drafted — it will be refined later on and will bear its first fruit in the next year.
This year, the Bank has already undertaken a number of CSR activities: it organised volunteer projects for its employees, sponsored the planting of 10,000 trees in Udmurtia, has become a partner of the World Wildlife Fund and the guardian of an Amur leopard at the Moscow Zoo, has put battery disposal bins in its offices, is working on socially oriented products and many more.
CBM's CSR efforts also gained independent recognition by Rating-Agentur Expert RA GmbH, who assigned a BBB ESG rating to the Bank earlier this year.