Sustainability reporting tool “mona”

 

A good sustainability management system is based on resilient data and facts that make the performance of an organization transparent and comparable. For this reason, the RZB Group has decided, as a development partner, to collaborate with research partners in order to develop innovative software based on the GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) for the purpose of monitoring and reporting on sustainability in a practical sense and with scientific expertise. The goal is for “mona” to be used throughout the RZB Group and at as many member organizations of the Raiffeisen Climate Protection Initiative as possible.

“mona” stands for Monitoring Sustainability (in German: Monitoring Nachhaltigkeit), and is an application that enables the simple and professional collection, aggregation, calculation and presentation of 30 selected sustainability indicators of the GRI. These include environmental indicators, economic, social (employees, society) and industry-specific indicators in German and English.

 As a development partner, we have been able to deploy our practical expertise from the perspective of an internationally active company. The experiences ranged from environmental management, the use of controlling software, key figures and HR management to specific banking expertise. In addition, we made a financial investment in the development of the software. Having spent more than one year under development, the first training courses were held in German for the organizations in Austria in fall 2013. Following this, a pilot project was launched at three selected network banks of the RBI Group and concluded at the end of 2013. The other network banks were trained at the beginning of 2014 by means of webinars.

 

Stakeholder Council

 

 

 

The financial crisis and the crisis of confidence have transformed the expectations that our stakeholders have of banks. To systematically learn about their economical, social and environmental concerns, we conduct regular surveys of our internal and external stakeholders. RZB Group works continuously on topics of relevance to us and our stakeholders within the context of stakeholder involvement, such as in Stakeholder Councils, in order to continuously improve our levels of sustainability.

 

 At the Stakeholder Council in November 2013, which was held under the motto of the Group-wide sustainability strategy “We create sustainable value”, sixty high-ranking representatives of the biggest stakeholder groups discussed challenging sustainability topics. Small groups of people worked intensively on the following tasks:

• Expectations regarding sustainable products

• Managing opportunities, innovations and risks

• Desired future stakeholder involvement

• Work-life balance for employees

• Raising awareness of sustainability amongst staff

• Bringing sustainable development to society

• Sustainability in entrepreneurship

 

The topics were derived from the results of last year’s Stakeholder Council or taken from the online survey conducted in 2013.

The aim of the event was to use the dialogue to ensure ongoing further development of the sustainability activities. The main positive and constructive discussions and suggestions confirmed that the chosen path of sustainability management is considered purposeful by large numbers of stakeholders. The various perspectives of the stakeholders and their expectations of the RZB Group produced a wealth of ideas and suggestions.

Specific next steps for the current sustainability program were formulated following analysis of the considerable amount of information gathered.

 

For further information ( in English & German), please check RZB Group Website.