Contents Foreword Management report Corporate governance
Consolidated Financial Statements
Company Financial Statements
Pillar 3
Sustainability Policy Framework
Rabobank published a new Sustalnablllty Policy Framework in
2016. This improved framework sets out Rabobank's complete
sustalnablllty policy and sheds more light on Rabobank's
sustalnablllty standpoints for customers, employees and society.
The advantages and benefits of the 2016 Sustalnablllty Policy
Framework lie in the enhanced interconnection between the
different sustalnablllty policies such as Human Rights and
sector policies such as the Sustainable Palm Oil policy. Also, it
provides a more defined scope and clearer language. The new
framework includes a few elements that are new or have been
altered, including an updated Animal Welfare policy and a new
policy on land governance that refines the 2015 statement on
land governance. The content of the new Sustalnablllty Policy
Framework is based on Rabobank's existing policy documents
and the various external guidelines Rabobank endorses,
such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD) guidelines for multinational companies
and the United Nations Global Compact. The Sustalnablllty
Policy Framework is available in Dutch and English and can be
found here.
Sustainable Procurement Standard
The Sustalnablllty Policy Framework addresses policies, but
also provides an overview of the implementation landscape
with Standards: documents describing how to implement
the policies. 2016 saw the introduction of the Sustainable
Procurement Standard (more Standards will be added to the
framework in future). Based on a best practice at the facilities
department, the Sustainable Procurement Standard has scope
throughout the bank, and prescribes that a supplier's level of
sustalnablllty be documented during the Requests for Proposal,
RFP's (Procurement Projects).
For procurement projects exceeding EUR 50,000 the Rabobank
Procurement department has a mandate from the Executive
Board to participate in the procurement team. Procurement will
support the business in conducting a check on sustalnablllty
criteria for potential suppliers based upon the ISO26000 guideline.
In general, the Standard requires that Rabobank exclude
potential suppliers if they are involved in activities which the
bank considers unethical or inappropriate. Also, all procuring
employees must evaluate sustalnablllty criteria and incorporate
them in their decision-making process. Finally, every contracted
supplier must also sign the Sustalnablllty Statement for business
partners of Rabobank Group.
Sustainability ratings
Rabobank strives for continuous improvement in sustalnablllty
performance. We value our top position in the ratings of key
agencies highly, which validates our impact on sustainable
development. Learning how society perceives our performance
tells us much about our progress and the sustalnablllty
improvements we've made to our services. In addition to
Rabobank's own sustalnablllty programme SST, participating in
the extensive questionnaires of different sustalnablllty ratings
agencies is also an important way for the bank to provide
insight into how sustalnablllty is embedded in our business.
We monitor the social appreciation of our worldwide
sustalnablllty efforts based on RobecoSAM's ranking of globally
operating financial institutions, Sustainalytics' analysis and
the Transparency Benchmark of the Netherlands Ministry of
Economic Affairs.
Rabobank's sustalnablllty performance scores have been
analysed. Although we are proud of these scores, our
sustalnablllty targets are ambitious. We hope to keep improving
our sustalnablllty performance and, in doing so, our scores
in the sustalnablllty ratings. Below is an overview of a few
important evaluators and our scores. We believe that these
scores can give our clients, NGO's, employees and society at
large independent and transparent insight into our contribution
to sustainable development.
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Our output and impact: increasing transparency