SUPPORTING FAIR AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

The National Recovery and Resilience Plan is not only an opportunity to define coherent policies in terms of economic, social and environmental sustainability, but also to set up institutions capable of planning the country’s long-term future.

This was one of the main messages highlighted from the Festival of Sustainable Development 2020’s opening event, organised by ASviS, the Alliance for Sustainable Development, of which UniCredit is the main partner for the fourth consecutive year.

During the initiative, organised in Rome on 22 September, a lot of focus was placed on restarting the economy in order to make Italy a more “sustainable” and “resilient” country made up of leading institutional representatives and leaders of key companies in the country’s strategic sectors.

Francesco Giordano Co-Ceo Commercial Banking Western Europe at UniCredit was among the guests, in addition to ASviS’ spokesperson Enrico Giovannini and ASviS’ President Pierluigi Stefanini and the Italian Minister for Infrastructure, Paola De Micheli.

“The approach that links resilience and sustainability, as defined by Agenda 2030 and by the European Union’s recent rigid policies, must be included in the Government Plan that is being prepared,” stated ASviS’ spokesperson Enrico Giovannini, “believing the transformation of our country can be achieved only by using the resources of the Next Generation EU would be a mistake”.

The same opinion was also shared by Minister De Micheli who, during her speech, spoke about the MIT plan, ‘Italia Veloce’, “with less physical and social distances, with more mobility opportunities, also more integrated through infrastructures in Europe. We want to bring as high a number of Italians as possible close to a large railway infrastructure in less than an hour”.

“In the financial world,” commented Francesco Giordano, speaking on the panel dedicated to infrastructure, finance and innovation for a fair and sustainable development, “the level of attention in these issues has grown exponentially in recent years and in some cases the private sector has moved even faster than the public sector.”

Sustainability is part of our bank’s DNA and we are proud that Reclaim Finance’s Coal Policy Tool Reclaim Finance recently highlighted UniCredit as an example of best practice in the banking sector. Evidence of our commitment is the complete update of the November 2019 Coal Policy, which foresees our exit from the coal industry in all markets by 2028.

With the Social Impact Banking (SIB) initiative, through Microcredit and Impact Financing, we have lent €170 million to a total of over 4,000 clients. UniCredit also placed €5.7 billion in social bonds with 8 transactions and supported European SMEs with over €6.4 billion in loans during the Covid-19 emergency in 1H20. Finally, as a bank, we also pioneered the new solutions provided for in the Liquidity Decree, the so-called Superbonus 110%. ESG (i.e. attention to environmental, social and governance issues) is an important component of our bank’s long-term growth, perfectly in line with our ethics of ‘Doing the right thing!

During the festival and until 8 October, hundreds of events in Italy, around the world and online will address crucial issues for the future of Italy and take stock of the path towards the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda containing 17 Sustainable Development Goals it aims to deliver.

For more information visit the official website.