30 The seventh Stakeholder Council of the RZB Group was held in November 2016 with the participation of 75 people from various stakeholder groups (customers and business partners, employees and owners, the world of finance and rating agencies, education and research, interest groups, media, public policy and administration, NGOs and NPOs). The objective of the workshop groups was intensive discussion of topics that had previously been classified as material to the sustainability work. First the external “table hosts” provided brief starting points for the questions to be investigated in the planned group work: Reinhard Friesenbichler, rfu (sustainable investments and commitment activities), Elisabeth Gail, Hauska & Partner (raising awareness among employees), Günther Lichtblau, Environment Agency Austria (impacts of the climate conference), Petra Rösler, zwei:und:drei (investments in the community), Michael Fembek, Essl Foundation (diversity in the core business: effects of the social Stakeholder Council 2016, © wdw4friends transformation) and Amira Zauchner, respACT (sustainability in the supply chain). A short summary of the results presented after the workshop rounds by a panel of Raiffeisen-internal stakeholder representatives is provided below. Sustainable investments and commitment activities This discussion round addressed the development of sustainable investments, from exclusion criteria to positive criteria as well as new instruments such as commitment, impact and divestment. It was reported that growing interest in the topic can be seen on the customer side, which also leads to the establishment of greater trust. The climate perspective (in particular CO2 reductions) is a particular priority when it comes to the actual goalsetting. Fitness for the future through long-term economic added value as well as new added value chains (e.g. based on changing demographics) also play a role. Questions such as whether sustainability and performance stand in conflict with each another could not be decisively answered. Critical comments included the idea that securing jobs is also a sustainable goal, that in many areas commitment can achieve more than divestment and that such activities can sometimes have the appearance of a “marketing gimmick”. On the question “What input would you like to share with us?”, it was frequently mentioned that customers should be better informed about sustainability topics at the time of investment. In particular, this should take place in direct dialog and without barriers of any kind. With such measures as well as greater transparency, it should be possible to improve the credibility of banks in general and – assuming the RZB Group comes to be more strongly associated with sustainability – the image of the group in particular. There is also a perceived need for more internal training and more people acting to raise awareness within the group. Greater courage and a broad perspective are considered important with regard to our own investment decisions. It also makes sense to further improve basic financial products. The target group definition plays a role here. It should be considered that investors with ethical motives do exist, but so do those with other motives. Despite even lower demand in CEE at the moment, an initiative here would be welcomed. Finally, it was noted that efforts should be made to integrate the widest possible spectrum of sustainability aspects. Raising awareness among employees This group discussed questions about how employees can be made aware of sustainability topics – in view of the general information overload – and how to transition from sharing information to taking proactive action. Sustainability is viewed as a very multi-layered topic. It is therefore necessary to act from many different perspectives, both bottom-up and top-down. The concept of “one size fits all” does not work when communicating on this topic. Instead, it is important to pursue various approaches in order to find the best way of promoting sustainability. Employees should therefore be brought up to speed on the topic in various ways,
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