3.3 Sustainable Development Goals Inhoudsopgave Voorwoord Bestuursverslag Corporate governance Consolidated Financial Statements Company Financial Statements Pillar 3 1.Strengthening innovativeness: Innovativeness is essential both for an excellent customer focus and for building a rock-solid bank. Innovation allows us to improve our own services and respond rapidly to opportunities in the market. In addition, innovation is essential to provide support with regard to the strategic issues our customers face. 2.Empowered employees: Achieving the strategic objectives will require a transformation into an organisation in which there is scope for professionalism and entrepreneurship, with a continual focus on development and training, employee diversity and a good, learning corporate culture. 3. Better cooperative organisation: The new governance structure will contribute to the transformation that our organisation must go through to fulfil the strategy. This will allow an organisation to emerge that is flexible for the future and centres on maximum local entrepreneurship. Strategy implementation The Strategic Framework 2016-2020 has initiated a group- wide transition process consisting of a wide range of change initiatives that impact our organisation structure, the way we work and the way we serve our customers. In addition to many initiatives in the line organisation, several numbers of large, strategic projects are also being implemented. The strategic implementation agenda has been designed along the four strategic pillars: complete customer focus, rock-solid bank, meaningful cooperative and empowered employees. The transition process is dynamic and can be adjusted based on changing circumstances. An integrated process for the coordination of the transition is essential to ensure timely and coherent implementation of the strategic goals.This process began in 2016 and will continue in the coming years. Strategy implementation is facilitated by a central oversight and coordination office for performance and strategic initiatives, which reports frequently to the Executive Board, Supervisory Board and supervisors. Processes have been established to ensure short-cycle steering by the Executive Board members in their respective domains, based on goals that have been translated into concrete activities, KPIs and clearly allocated responsibilities. This approach enables the line- organisation to remain in the lead of the transition process. Rabobank is a cooperative bank with deep social roots that was established by and for entrepreneurial poor farmers. Their response to the problems they faced at the time shows surprising parallels with the global challenges we face now. These days the scale of the problem is much greater, due to the limited natural resources which the earth has available in the face of rapidly growing global populations and increasing inequality.The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) drawn up by the United Nations are a clear benchmark for the challenges we must solve together. The goals were developed in 2015, in cooperation with businesses, social organisations and other parties. It is a set of goals to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all as part of a new sustainable development agenda that has to be achieved over the nxt 15 years. Rabobank helps to achieve the SDGs by offering financial support, sharing knowledge and connecting parties. We have embedded our contribution to the SDGs in our strategic ambition because, as a socially responsible bank, we feel a responsibility to take up the challenge of making a meaningful contribution to achieving the 17 goals. We have a direct impact on the SDGs by following our Banking for Food and Banking for the Netherlands strategies and the Sustainably Successful Together programme, as well as indirectly through projects organised by Rabobank Foundation and Rabo Development, for example. The infographic below shows how we are working directly towards reaching the goals.The goals to which we are making a primary contribution are enlarged in the infographic, other relevant SDGs are coloured in and the SDGs on which we have limited impact are shown in grey. Impact requires focus. Which is why we focus our activities on the global challenges to which we can make the greatest social contribution. For more information about our impact on the SDGs, see appendix 5. As a leading food agri-bank in the world, our highest priority is to work hard to achieve global food security for the growing world population (SDG 2 Zero Flunger). In future years production by both large and small farmers must be increased sustainability and better distributed. We are committed to investing in this. In the Netherlands and in our global food agri-domain we work hard to stimulate economic growth and decent work (SDG 8 Decent work and economic growth). In the coming years we will further develop our role to become a financial linking pin. This means that the main focus is not on the loan itself but on working with the client to find the right form of funding and the right network. 309 3. About Rabobank

Rabobank Bronnenarchief

Jaarverslagen Rabobank | 2016 | | pagina 310