Stakeholder Engagement

Stakeholder Engagement

Stakeholder engagement helps;

• to improve economic performance,
• to minimize and manage risks,
• to understand stakeholder demand and expectations,
• to be aware of developments and innovations of goods and services,
• to manage environmental impact,
• to shape community investment activities.

Garanti BBVA interviewed numerous strategic corporate customers in order to understand their expectations from the banking sector, how banks should improve and the current sustainability challenges they face. Based on the feedback received from customers, the Bank updated its sustainability strategy to include actions to educate customers on sustainability and become a trusted advisor in supporting its customers in minimizing their own environmental footprint.

Another key component of Garanti BBVA's engagement with customers is maintaining open and collaborative communication on issues relating to environmental and social risk management during project due diligence. Through this engagement process, the Bank aims to contribute to its customers’ environmental and social risk management capacity building as well as raising awareness on the impact of sustainability issues in the business world. To that end, the Bank communicates with customers through various means including bilateral meetings to present the Bank’s approach, sectoral conferences where real and financial sector representatives are brought together to discuss sustainability issues and ongoing consultations with project owners during project development, implementation and operation phases. Ongoing consultations in particular are critical to establishing an open and positive dialogue with our customers and enable our expert team to transfer knowhow on regulatory and technical issues to our customers who are in the process of undertaking various investments. For those stakeholder groups where high impact is not reciprocal Garanti BBVA informs, consults, negotiates and undertakes proactive monitoring of these groups. For example, Garanti BBVA started studies to keep its interests in line with the new trend on the effects of carbon pricing on investment decisions after a meeting with several stakeholder groups and desktop research in a workshop organized by an ESG rating agency in London in May 2015. After these studies, Garanti BBVA became the first bank from Turkey to sign the UNGC’s Business Leadership Criteria on Carbon Leadership. After signing the criteria, Garanti BBVA also declared its Climate Change Position Statement & Action Plan at the link below.

For detailed information: Sustainability Reports