Together with its Group companies, the Bank supported Poland’s energy transition by financing sustainable projects and expanding its product offering.
Strategic ESG objectives and their implementation
The strategic ESG objectives are included in Pillar 4 of the Bank’s Strategy for 2023-2025 – Leader of ESG transformation in the Polish banking sector. Oversight of the implementation of the Strategy and the achievement of strategic objectives at the Bank is carried out by the Strategy Committee, which comprises members of the Bank’s Management Board.
In 2023, the Bank:
- increased funding for sustainable and transformational projects, including funding for wind farms (onshore and offshore), the purchase of zero-emission buses, the expansion of a factory to produce separators for electric car batteries, or the purchase of state-of-the-art locomotives,
- provided syndicated financing to the Enea Group. The total amount is PLN 2.5 billion, with PKO Bank Polski’s share being the largest and amounting to PLN 750 million,
- expanded the offer for companies by adding an ecological loan and implemented guarantee schemes for the housing market related to thermal renovation bonuses and eco payment cards;
- made two investment sub-funds available which are categorised as light green plus products, i.e. which meet the requirements of Article 8 of the SFDR;
- has extended its long-term rental offering to include electric cars as part of the „My Electrician” programme.
In the area of social responsibility, the Bank:
- conducted an image campaign “#Ekoodpowiedzialni” to promote ecological attitudes;
- launched an ESG training programme for employees as part of the #ESGo! (2.2 thousand people have been trained);
- organised the “Sztuka Pomagania (The Art of Helping)” auction, which is the culmination of the “Bank Dobrych Serc (Good-Hearted Bank)” campaign to support 48 Single Mother’s Homes across Poland. 11 paintings from the Bank’s collection were auctioned, raising almost PLN 350 thousand.
In terms of corporate governance, the Bank:
- built the ESG governance structure,
- introduced ESG criteria for the evaluation of suppliers in all tendering procedures;
- took steps to reduce its carbon footprint from operations.
The settlement of the Strategy’s objectives based on non-financial performance indicators is presented in the tables below.
| COMMITMENT BY 2025 | INDICATOR | 2023 | 2022 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Increase in the proportion of women in management positions to >40% | Share of women in management positions | 38.7 | 38.7 |
| Increase the proportion of women in MRT positions in the Bank to >30% | Share of women in MRT positions in the Bank | 22.7 | 20.6 |
| >2% participation of people with disabilities among employees | Share of people with disabilities among employees | 1.2 | 1.2 |
| Closing the gender pay gap | Gender pay gap | 2% | 4% |
| voluntary departure rate <7% | Voluntary departure rate | 5.4 | 7.9 |
| ratio of total staff turnover <14% | Ratio of total staff turnover | 10.0 | 13.4 |
| COMMITMENT BY 2025 | IMPLEMENTATION IN 2023 |
|---|---|
| The highest volume of new financing for sustainable and transformation projects | PLN 2.2 billion |
| Top 3 Bank in ESG financing in each business segment, supporting customers with an energy transformation expertise | Target for the end of 2025 |
| Climate neutrality in Scope 1 and 2 by 2030 | Medium-term target (until 2030) |
| Reducing own emissions (Scope 1 and 2) | Reducing the Bank’s emissions (Scope 1 and 2), location-based method, compared to the previous year (2022) by 5.75% |
| >90% of energy purchased certified as green-sourced | 97.6% of the electricity purchased by the Bank |
| First issue of the Bank’s own green bonds | Target for the end of 2025 |
The Bank has also adopted a target to create and publish a trajectory for reducing the Bank’s CO2 emissions (in progress) and a commitment to systematically expand the disclosure of the Bank’s CO2 emissions (see Environment).
| COMMITMENT BY 2025 | IMPLEMENTATION IN 2023 |
|---|---|
| Leader in youth financial education (increase in the number of Junior accounts) |
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| Leader in activities that support the digital transformation of various social groups, including seniors (promotion of digital public services – access to e-gov through the bank’s digital channels; application and page in multiple language versions) |
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| Leader in combating social exclusion (inclusive banking for people with disabilities; offer tailored to the specific needs of customers of all ages and at any location) |
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| Leader in support for the population of Ukraine and the country reconstruction process |
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Key non-financial performance indicators
Policies
The Bank’s Group has adopted policies for the most important social and employee-related issues, the natural environment, respect for human rights and prevention of corruption and has the following regulations:
- Code of Ethics,
- Information policy and communication with investors,
- Dividend policy (Chapter 7.3),
- Security policy (incl. cybersecurity)
- Policy on the assessment of suitability of the Supervisory Board members
- Diversity policy in respect of the Management and Supervisory Board,
- Sponsorship and charity policy,
- Policy for appointing an audit firm,
- Policy for counteracting money laundering and financing of terrorism,
- Principles for ensuring compliance and managing non-compliance risk
- Employment regulations of the bank and recruitment principles
- Remuneration policy,
- Principles for employee development
- Anti-harassment and anti-discrimination policy,
- Common labour market policy,
- Procurement policy,
- Tax strategy,
- Occupational health and safety policy,
- Principles of waste management and environmental protection.
Tax strategy
Since 2021, the Bank, as an entity operating in a responsible and transparent manner, has had the Tax Strategy of PKO Bank Polski S.A. adopted by the Management Board in the form of a resolution and approved by the Supervisory Board. Each year, the Bank reviews the Strategy for its validity and, if necessary, makes recommendations to the Management Board and Supervisory Board for approval.
In accordance with the statutory obligation, the Powszechna Kasa Oszczędności Bank Polski Spółka Akcyjna Tax Group (hereinafter: TG), which consists of: The Bank, PKO Bank Hipoteczny S.A. and PKO Leasing S.A. has prepared another annual Information on the pursued tax strategy for 2022.
The Bank’s Tax Strategy and the information prepared by the TG on the pursued tax strategy for 2020, 2021 and 2022 are available on the Bank’s website.
The basic internal regulations on procurement are as follows: Procurement Policy, Rules for the purchase of goods and services, Procedures for the purchase of goods and services and Code of Ethics for Suppliers and Bidders.
The Procurement Policy was adopted by a resolution of the Bank’s Management Board in October 2023 and replaced the previous procurement policy introduced by a decision of the Director of the procurement department.
The purpose of the Procurement Policy is to ensure the efficient and sustainable development of the Bank (paragraph 1(1) of the Procurement Policy). The Procurement Policy applies to all purchases of the Bank (paragraph 3 of the Policy). It introduces procurement standards, establishes procurement objectives and defines good and bad practices of the procurement process.
Among the purchasing standards, the Policy introduces the obligation to take environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) objectives into account when evaluating bidders and suppliers (paragraph 4(7) of the Policy). The Policy establishes the following as procurement objectives: quality, efficiency and development (aiming to optimise functional requirements while minimising the life-cycle costs of goods and services). The procurement organisation’s medium-term goal, on the other hand, is to apply and enhance the importance of the requirements formulated in the procurement procedure with regard to ESG factors. The Procurement Policy furthermore establishes, among other things, the following ESG-relevant standards for the procurement process, i.e. fair treatment of bidders and suppliers, proportionality of the requirements and criteria established in the process to the goods or services purchased, and management of conflicts of interest. As best practice during the procurement process, the Procurement Policy recognises, among others, a fair evaluation of bids consisting in: (i) evaluation on the basis of the criteria adopted (including ESG), the weights of the assessments and the documents and information provided, (ii) an appropriate distinction between elimination criteria and evaluated criteria, (iii) the use of criteria related to the need addressed and relevant to the selection, (iv) objectivity in the evaluation and (v) the avoidance of unjustified preferential evaluations.
In the first quarter of 2023, the Bank adopted the „Common Labour Market Policy of PKO Bank Polski S.A. Group Companies”. The aim of the policy is to implement guiding objectives to ensure that the Group companies operate on the internal and external labour market as entities sharing a uniform employment and remuneration policy, a coherent organisational culture, a stable and safe working environment, without creating competition for each other in attracting employees, but creating a consistent image of the Group as an employer. Among other things, the policy is intended to implement effective tools for the recruitment and development of relevant employee competences. The policy was made available to the Bank’s subsidiaries for adoption and implementation.