137 GRI Index and Assurance statement Engaged citizen Fair partner Responsible banker Human Capacity Report Sustainability management Overview Foreword the RZB Group, these include economic, political and social changes, changes to the market and change at suppliers. A review of the probability of climate change and its consequences for companies reveals that these areas are currently undergoing rapid change, requiring great flexibility in terms of environmental objectives and measures. Priorities in the EU are on innovation programs to reduce carbon dioxide emissions as well as on renewable energy and energy efficiency. These issues are naturally also very important to the RZB Group. They will be the key to achieving both the RZB Group’s inhouse environmental targets and global environmental targets. The RZB Group takes its responsibility to society and the environment seriously in terms of climate issues and therefore set environmental goals for the entire group a few years ago. As a result of the dynamic developments in 2016, these goals were adjusted to the 2°C target of COP 21 with a long-term timeframe through to 2050. According to scientific consensus, a reduction in the greenhouse gas emissions of industrialized nations of around 80 percent is deemed necessary over this timeframe. The RZB Group has set itself the goal of reducing its Scope 1–2 emissions by 60 percent by 2050. This is all the more important given that the fact that many companies have set hardly any long-term objectives beyond 2030, which is seen as a major obstacle to achieving the objectives. In December 2016, the National Assembly enacted the Sustainability and Diversity Improvement Act (NaDiVeG) in the Austrian Commercial Code, the Companies Act and the Limited Liability Company Act, which comes into effect for the first time in financial year 2017. EU Directive 2014/95/EU was thereby implemented in national law. Based on internal analyses, no changes are required for the environmental sector, given that the RZB Group already reports several environmental indicators in accordance with the GRI guideline recognized in the EU Directive and in NaDiVeG. Nevertheless, we will continue to review whether a more detailed presentation of individual contents makes sense.
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