61 GRI Index and Assurance statement Engaged citizen Fair partner Responsible banker Human Capacity Report Sustainability management Overview Foreword Sabine Koszteczky, Global Corporate Customers, Head of Team “Telecom, Utility, Technology” in Corporate Customers, RBI AG “In order to best satisfy the needs of our customers, we consider the building of long-term and sustainable relationships with them to be a matter of great importance. We strive to ensure this through appropriate, custom-tailored solutions as well as high service quality. This service quality and flexibility have always numbered among our company’s strengths. In recent years, sustainability has also steadily gained in significance. This is true not only in the area of customer relationships but also in connection with the environment. Sustainability has been firmly anchored within our internal and external processes. By taking these steps, we have acted in accordance with developments throughout the financial sector in that sustainability and the conscious use of resources have been accorded ever-increasing importance. For it is the producing companies that take a sustainable and resource-conserving approach which are acting in accordance with the spirit of the time. Sustainability is an integral part of our Code of Conduct, guidelines that apply to all processes within our company. This code has long since established our commitment to promoting environmentally friendly technologies and to refraining from financing projects that pose longterm risks to the environment.” QUOTE Sustainable financing We describe financing as being “sustainable” when it has long-term positive effects on the real economy, infrastructure and regional development, on society and social affairs, the environment and climate, or on research, education and innovation. With a majority of these financing projects, we support targets as stipulated in the “Sustainable Development Goals” (SDGs) within the scope of our capabilities as a financial institution. In this regard, a particular focus lies on the efforts to “promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all” (Goal 8), “build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation” (Goal 9) and “take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts” (Goal 13). Sustainable financing at the Vienna sites (By RBI AG, unless otherwise specified) Once again in 2016, numerous new business transactions were carried out in areas considered desirable from a sustainability perspective. Positive impacts on the real economy, infrastructure and regional development • Infrastructure and regional development: One investment financing project for a Lower Austrian production company is worth mentioning. Its purpose was to increase efficiency in producing components for the energy sector (generators and transformers) . • Public sector projects: In the past year, RBI AG supported 197 institutes of the Raiffeisen Banking Group in Austria in financing a total of 99 projects for water supply facilities, waste water systems, schools and kindergartens as well as similar public works projects with a value of € 49 million. As a result, the total volume of new and existing financing projects supported in 2016 was € 971 million. Impacts on society and social affairs • Health and sports: In 2016, RBI AG, with joint support from the public sector, financed the modernization of medical equipment at a hospital in Vietnam, the erection of a radiotherapy and oncology center in Tunisia and the revitalization of a hospital in Nicaragua, including the installation of a thermo-solar cooling and warm water system, in the form of development aid loans totaling approx. € 44 million. This is possible under certain conditions in countries/regions which have been classified by the Republic of Austria as worthy of funding. The goal of such “soft loans” is to contribute to the © RBI AG
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