Commerzbank AG

Sustainability has been an integral part of our corporate strategy since 2020. Under the central guideline "Responsibility," we pursue a holistic ESG approach that considers environmental issues as well as social responsibility and responsible corporate governance. In the environmental sector, biodiversity protection is an important focus for us. We look at both the risks that affect our customers and, consequently, our business, as well as the direct impacts of our financing on biodiversity. We see it as part of our responsibility to reduce both these risks and the negative impacts – for our own business success and for society.

By joining the Biodiversity in Good Company Initiative and committing to the goals of the International Convention on Biodiversity, we aim to deepen our commitment to biodiversity. The initiative allows us to engage with other companies from the real economy on an equal footing, discuss the latest developments, and learn from each other. This helps us to gradually integrate biodiversity protection even more firmly into our banking business.

Protecting nature is not a new topic for us at Commerzbank. As early as 1990, Commerzbank, in collaboration with German national parks, initiated the Environmental Internship (Umweltpraktikum). Today, we cooperate with 27 protected areas and annually fund 75 internship positions focused on education for sustainable development. The goal is to teach children and young people the importance of nature conservation and biodiversity. The program was honored in 2007 as an official project of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development and received recognition as an official project of the UN Decade on Biodiversity on its 25th anniversary in 2015. Another example of our socio-ecological commitment is our cooperation with the Bergwaldprojekt, through which more than 1 million square meters of public forest in Germany have been reforested since autumn 2018.

Our direct commitment as a bank in the areas of environment and biodiversity aims to have a positive influence on the financial and real economy. The foundation of our work is an annual materiality analysis on biodiversity, through which we identify the key risk factors, impacts, and sectors in our portfolio. To achieve this, we use the ENCORE tool and the WWF Biodiversity Risk Filter. The results of this analysis are utilized to make strategic decisions, such as the further development of our exclusion criteria.

In our core business, we primarily consider biodiversity protection through exclusion criteria for our products, customers, and financed transactions in sensitive areas. For example, with our position on the topic of deforestation, we have already established clear exclusion criteria for particularly harmful activities. In doing so, we align ourselves with internationally recognized standards and continuously review additional relevant memberships and certifications.

“The importance of integrating climate and biodiversity risks into our business strategy” is affirmed by our CEO, Bettina Orlopp, in the foreword of our ESG framework. By doing so, she significantly outlines how Commerzbank will continue to strategically assess the impacts of our business activities on biodiversity and the consequences of species extinction for us as a bank.

*KI-generated English translation