Earth Day – a continued investment
Friday 22 April 2022
At UniCredit we are committed to contributing towards a more sustainable world in everything we do. We do this by investing in our five core capitals: Natural Capital, Social & Relationship Capital, Financial Capital, Human Capital and Intellectual Capital, which are all interlinked and underpinned by our Purpose of Empowering Communities to Progress.
UniCredit is Investing in our Planet through our commitment to protecting Natural Capital by delivering sustainable financing solutions to our clients, supporting them and our communities in the energy transition, investing in sustainable innovation and reducing the environmental impact of our direct operations.
In addition to Earth Day, yesterday 21 April also marked the first anniversary of the UN-convened Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), which UniCredit signed-up to with a pledge to reach net-zero on own emissions by 2030 and on our financed emissions by 2050, in October last year. NZBA brings together banks worldwide representing over 40% of global banking assets, all committed to aligning their lending and investment portfolios with net-zero emissions by 2050. Combining near-term action with accountability, this ambitious promise sees signatory banks setting an intermediate target for 2030 or sooner, using robust, science-based guidelines. Since joining the Alliance, UniCredit has set up a dedicated taskforce to follow our net-zero journey, also leveraging on external and third-party expertise to benefit from industry best practice and the latest scientific knowledge.
We also play a strategic role in fostering the transition towards a circular economy, a building block of the European Green Deal and one of the six objectives of the EU Taxonomy. There are several ways in which we contribute to the circular transition: through finance / lending, advisory, synergies and partnerships, and internal initiatives in terms of resource efficiency and recycling.
Furthermore, we support innovative start-ups and SMEs with a strong ESG footprint and those that are actively involved in the circular economy. In 2021 in Italy, we gave our support to 50 start-ups that were able to raise more than 33 million euros of investment in the innovation ecosystem.
All our activities and efforts linked to the environment are not in isolation. Given the path to a more sustainable future is a collective effort, it is furthermore strongly tied to our ongoing social initiatives in all our communities. We are committed to acting as engines of individual and collective growth, Empowering Communities to Progress and help people, communities, and countries in unlocking their potential. This means promoting stronger economic participation for everyone as well as fostering financial inclusion, helping people and businesses improve their financial skills.
To find out more about how we leverage our 5 core capitals to contribute towards a more sustainable world in an integrated way, follow our social media channels over the coming weeks, which will deep-dive into each of these areas or visit our Integrated Report for complete information on how UniCredit is working to unlock the potential of all our stakeholders.