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Sustainable Development Goals
In order to help find solutions for global challenges, promote human welfare and protect the environment, the
international community of states making up the UN adopted “Agenda 2030” in September 2015 in the interests
of sustainable development. At its core are 17 goals for sustainable development, the so-called Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) and their 169 sub-goals. The SDGs encompass social and economic development
as well as environmental sustainability. They also address aspects such as peace and security, justice and global
partnerships, all of which are of great importance for sustainable development. The SDGs are globally applicable.
In other words, all 193 UN member states, including Austria, are called upon to contribute to achieving the goals
according to their means. Incentives should also be established to encourage non-state actors to increasingly
make active contributions to sustainable development.
As an international banking group, we consider ourselves obliged to support these important international
initiatives within the scope of our sustainability agenda. Our focus is on those SDGs that are most material and
relevant to our business activities and that best complement our sustainability strategy.
To make this possible, we worked with an external consultant to create a structured process to identify the SDGs
that are most material to our business. This process included a number of steps:
1. In the first step, we explored the existing connections between the SDGs and our areas of strategic focus as
well as the material topics and initiatives of RBI and the SDGs. We also investigated which SDGs have been
placed on the agendas of other financial companies.
2. Based on this analysis, Group Sustainability Management and the external consultant participated in a
workshop where they evaluated the top SDG topics according to specific criteria. The following four criteria
were of primary importance:
2. • Reference: How closely is an SDG related to RBI?
2. • Importance: Group Sustainability Management examined how important it is for RBI to contribute to this
global goal.
2. • Impact: The impact that RBI can actually have on the respective goal was evaluated.
2. • Attractiveness: Finally, we evaluated how promising this SDG is for RBI.
3. The individual evaluations were combined into an overall evaluation. This resulted in ten SDGs that are
relevant to RBI, of which five have especially high relevance.
4. In 2017, the SDGs were expanded due to additional internal analysis, so that in the end eight SDGs are
considered essential to RBI. The expansion includes SDGs 1, 4 and 7.
RESPONSIBLE BANKER
9
Sustainable
entrepreneurship
Active civil society
and public interest
Environmentally
Fair business
and operating
7
Raiffeisen Bank International | Sustainability Report 2017
friendly society
ENGAGEd CITIzEN
practices
Employees and
stakeholders
Inhouse ecology
Fair Partner
eN viRoNMeN t
Product ecology
SoCie ty
Social product responsibility
eCoNoM y
Added value
We create
sustainable
value
1
4
13
9
8
7
5 16
5
16
8
13
13
7
8 9
5
16
8
8
1
1
1
4
4
8