Make It Simple. It's Easy with Unicredit. 2009 Sustainability Report
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2009 Sustainability Report Make it simple. It’s easy with UniCredit. 2009 Sustainability Report We UniCredit people are committed to generating value for our customers. As a leading European bank, we are dedicated to the development of the communities in which we live, and to being a great place to work. We aim for excellence and we consistently strive to be easy to deal with. These commitments will allow us to create sustainable value for our shareholders. Times change, but commitments do not. We emerged from 2009 with a renewed sense of purpose and direction. What was important to us before is even more important today. Namely, our customers. Accordingly, we developed a new mission statement in 2009 to reinforce those principles and practices that we believe to be drivers of greater customer centricity. Emphasized in this mission is the desire to make banking as easy as possible for our customers by offering the kind of simple, straightforward solutions that can assist them in achieving their financial goals reliably and efficiently. This is what we call real-life banking. It means providing our clients with more than just financial services by giving them the right support at the right time and in the right way. It is about looking our customers in the eye, working closely with them to assess their real-life needs, and then using our expertise to deliver effective solutions through smooth and easy interactions. We believe that our rigorous dedication to simplicity and transparency will continue to advance excellence in all that we do. It will also maintain and grow the trust of our customers - a trust that is exemplified in the following pages. This year’s report features photographs and personal stories from UniCredit Group customers across Europe, highlighting the concrete role that our company has played in their lives. Each of these individuals, who represent the foundation upon which we are structuring our shared future, has told us about a time we made their life easier. 2009 Sustainability Report Radu Timis, Cristim Group Corporate Banking Client - Romania «At a time of market contraction, when increased commercial pressures were combined with the effects of the fi nancial crisis, UniCredit Tiriac Bank was open to supporting my company to launch a new business line. By supporting the new concept, the bank showed trust and confi dence in our expertise, which set the stage for our expansion.» It’s easy with UniCredit. 2 2009 Sustainability Report · UniCredit Group Index A discussion with the Chief Executive Officer 4 Report Structure 8 UniCredit Group Profile 10 Our Approach 15 UniCredit Group’s new mission statement 16 UniCredit Group’s sustainability framework 16 Brand positioning 18 Reputation assessment 18 One for Customers 19 Stakeholder engagement 19 Integrity Charter 22 Our People 25 UniCredit People: a portrait in numbers 26 Leadership pipeline, training and development 27 Diversity 33 Corporate culture 35 Industrial Relations 37 Welfare, health and work-life balance 38 Our Customers 41 Listening to our customers 42 Complaint management 45 Transparency 47 Financial education 49 Sensitivity, proximity to customers 50 Responsible lending 51 Our response to natural disaster 56 Security 57 Investors & Markets 61 Shareholder Relations 62 Investor Relations 62 UniCredit Group shareholder base 63 Communities 65 The Italian Territorial Committees 66 Transparent cooperation with international institutions 67 Support to universities and economic research 69 Sponsorships and donations 70 Unidea – UniCredit Foundation 74 Environment 79 Environmental policy 80 Environmental Sustainability Program 80 Fighting climate change 80 Environmental identity 81 Energy efficiency 81 Mobility management 82 Waste management 82 Electronic waste projects 82 Water consumption 82 Indirect environmental impacts and supplier relationships 83 Supplement 85 Appendixes 85 GRI Index and Global Compact Principles 122 Report of the External Auditors 126 UniCredit Group · 2009 Sustainability Report 3 A discussion with the Chief Executive Officer This year, UniCredit Group is replacing the traditional letter from the Chief Executive Officer to stakeholders with a discussion between Alessandro Profumo and Antonella Massari, Head of the Group Identity and Communications Department, which is responsible for our activities in sustainability. AM: Last year at this time, the financial crisis was at its peak. In your letter to stakeholders you wrote that the crisis had resulted in a clear loss of confidence in banks, which had to act rapidly to rebuild trust. Do you think this is still the situation today? And what steps has UniCredit Group taken to re-establish confidence and respond to the challenges of the post-crisis period? AP: I believe that there is still a trust problem for banks. Last year we had to confront a lack of confidence in the financial sustainability of the industry and in its ability to provide loans to businesses. Today the solvency of banks is no longer in question, but there is still doubt about their ability to prevent some of the same risks we faced during the recent crisis. Certainly, this perception is more marked in relation to investment banks than it is to companies that are primarily engaged in the commercial banking business, such as our own. Speaking specifically of UniCredit Group, I can say that we reacted quickly to rebuild trust. We did this by launching a series of timely initiatives in support of families and companies, in particular SMEs. This includes Impresa Italia, a program through which we provided credit during the crisis to more than 11,500 Italian SMEs with loans totalling roughly €1.5 billion. 4 2009 Sustainability Report · UniCredit Group Over 16,000 businesses facing difficulty received a benefit our business customers abroad, while providing lifeline through our SOS Impresa Italia program, involving them with an important network of local relationships in an exposure of €1.3 billion. For corporate customers, each country. we launched the Enterprise Support Program for the reformulation of credit facilities in order to reinforce their What we learned from listening to our stakeholders also overall financial position. This initiative accepted roughly provided us with the foundation for our new mission 2,800 applications for an amount of €2.2 billion. statement. It clearly states our desire to place customers at the center of our activities and to respond to their I believe that customer appreciation of these efforts demand for high-quality and transparent products, and was fundamental to re-establishing confidence in simple and effective processes. UniCredit Group. The crisis also encouraged us to intensify our efforts AM: Speaking about the Group’s new mission to listen to stakeholders. For example, in 2009 the statement, its cornerstone is value creation for Territorial Committees launched I Territori del sistema our key stakeholders – customers, employees, Italia, an initiative that engages leading players within communities and shareholders. Does that mean local territories in an effort to better understand their that the fundamental message of our mission is a needs and expectations, and to ultimately increase commitment to sustainability? customer satisfaction. This project has developed naturally to encompass listening to colleagues from AP: The mission statement expresses several important within our commercial network – the individuals who messages, one of which we already mentioned – service our clients and territories on a daily basis. customer centricity. The implementation of this priority Another important way in which we listened to involves the commitment of all Group colleagues. stakeholders in 2009 was through a survey we conducted on the Group’s reputation in Italy, Austria, Another priority included in our mission involves the Germany and Poland. communities in which we work. Our customers and employees, who live in these communities, are the Group’s vital stakeholders. So we recognize the impact of our role in AM: We have intensified and broadened the spectrum the communities and are committed to their development. of our activities involving dialogue and stakeholder engagement. What were the most important lessons We also felt the mission statement should stress our learned in these discussions? dedication to being a leader in innovation, including our customer relations and our efforts to shape the industry’s AP: The main lesson learned has been our customers’ future, by working together, for example, with regulators. need for a straightforward relationship with their bank, founded on the delivery of high-quality products and The mission also reflects our European identity and that we services, and on transparent and simple processes and have based our corporate culture on trust and reciprocity. communications. It is important that our people are not only technically knowledgeable, but that they know how I am convinced that by pursuing our goals – as described in to deal with customers in an empathetic way and how to the mission statement – we can implement sustainability in speak to them in a language that is easy to understand. our corporate strategies and our daily business. This view has been reinforced by our own staff, especially those who are in direct contact with customers, as well AM: What elements are fundamental to a as those stakeholders who live and work in the territories sustainability approach that can infuse the bank’s where we operate. decision-making process,