Home / Sustainability / Responsible business

Doing the right thing, in a sustainable way

At uab bank, we believe in doing the right thing, in a sustainable way. We believe in creating value for all stakeholders, while meeting the environmental, social and governance challenges. We pride ourselves in complying with the law and do not take any business decisions that is seen or perceived to be seen violating the letter or spirit of the law. Strong internal controls and governance practices are in place to ensure, we remain compliant.

We are facing unprecedented environmental and social challenges, which affects the way we go about our business. We are committed to setting standards and developing solutions that addresses the social, economic and environmental challenges. As a part proactive approach to address the challenges, we recently signed Memorandum of Understanding with WWF to develop and implement ESG Policy. In 2019, we completed a first materiality assessment to identify the issues that are material to us as a financial service provider and to our stakeholders. We have also aligned identified material areas with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

We are committed to UN Principles for Responsible Banking and UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

  • Alignment: Commitment to align the business strategies with the objectives expounded in the SDGs and the Paris Agreement
  • Impact and target setting: Commitment to increase the positive impacts and decrease the negative impacts of their business activities. Commitment to targets where we can have significant impacts
  • Clients and customers: Work responsibly with their clients and customers in order to develop sustainable practices and foster shared prosperity for both current and future generations
  • Stakeholders: Commitment to proactively consult, engage, and partner with relevant stakeholders to achieve society’s goals
  • Governance and culture: Implement Principles through an effective system of governance and a culture of responsible banking
  • Transparency and responsibility: Review implementation of principles periodically and be transparent about positive and negative impacts

uab bank respects and supports “Protect, Respect and Remedy” framework, which rests on three pillars. The three pillars are:

  • Protect: The State duty to protect against human rights abuses by third parties, including business, through appropriate policies, regulation, and adjudication
  • Respect: The corporate responsibility to respect human rights, which means to act with due diligence to avoid infringing the rights of others and to address adverse impacts that occur; and
  • Remedy: Both State and business responsibility to provide greater access to victims for effective remedy, both judicial and non-judicial

You can read more about Human Rights here:

Statement on Human Rights

Human Rights

Principle 1: Businesses should support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights; and
Principle 2: make sure that they are not complicit in human rights abuses.

Labour

Principle 3: Businesses should uphold the freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining;
Principle 4: the elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labour;
Principle 5: the effective abolition of child labour; and
Principle 6: the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.

Environment

Principle 7: Businesses should support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges;
Principle 8: undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility; and
Principle 9: encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies.

Anti-Corruption

Principle 10: Businesses should work against corruption in all its forms, including extortion and bribery.