Case study: How ICBC works with its clients and customers to encourage sustainable practices

Stakeholder identification and consultation

Please describe which stakeholders (or groups/ types of stakeholders) you have identified, consulted, engaged, collaborated or partnered with for the purpose of implementing the Principles and improving your bank’s impacts. This should include a high-level overview of how your bank has identified relevant stakeholders, what issues were addressed/results achieved and how they fed into the action planning process.

The Basic Rules for Corporate Social Responsibility (ESG and Sustainable Finance) at ICBC define social responsibility as the commitment the Group makes towards promoting high-quality development. This includes steadfast adherence to a civilized development path that advocates advanced production, a prosperous lifestyle, and a healthy ecological environment. The bank aims to provide effective financial support and services for the sustainable development of the Chinese nation, while ensuring the sharing of benefits with shareholders, customers, employees, society, and other stakeholders.

ICBC places great importance on stakeholder communication. By establishing mechanisms for both immediate and regular dialogue, as well as coordinating discussions on specific topics and international exchanges, ICBC maintains continuous and effective communication with key stakeholders. It actively encourages stakeholder engagement by leveraging new media platforms. To protect the rights and interests of investors and other stakeholders, particularly minority shareholders, the bank strictly complies with domestic and international regulations on information disclosure. Throughout the reporting period, ICBC continuously enhanced its proactive information disclosure system, especially during periodic reports, and actively responded to investor inquiries through its voluntary disclosure channels, making its information sharing more proactive and effective.

ICBC actively promotes sustainable development among its suppliers, emphasizing green and low-carbon practices. The bank’s centralized procurement processes adhere to national regulations and are guided by principles of transparency, fairness, justice, and integrity. The Administrative Measures for Centralized Procurement Suppliers have been updated to better define management requirements for identifying significant risks and addressing illegal activities related to environmental protection, social responsibility, and corporate governance among suppliers.

ICBC values its people, showing care for employees by enhancing its employee incentive mechanisms and training systems. The bank actively leverages the role of the employee representative assembly, safeguards the legitimate rights and interests of employees, and prioritizes equality in employment and career development opportunities for female staff.

ICBC actively advances consumer protection education and awareness initiatives. In 2024, the bank designated it as the “Year of Consumer Protection Education Promotion Deepening” across all its operations and launched a themed campaign titled “Year of Consumer Protection Education Promotion Deepening.” During the reporting period, ICBC organized over 202,600 financial education activities, reaching more than 1.856 million individuals.

Additionally, 15,000 of the bank’s outlets established “ICBC Sharing Stations.” Utilizing the “ICBC Sharing Station” service platform, ICBC strengthened its collaboration with volunteer service organizations to provide volunteer assistance, support, and other community welfare services to the public, creating a “warm home” of volunteering, care, and aid.

ICBC utilized the Group’s social donation capabilities to assist the needy and vulnerable populations, encouraged and guided employees to engage in volunteer activities, expanded avenues for community service, and actively supported social charity.

How did ICBC work with its clients and customers to encourage sustainable practices and enable sustainable economic activities?

In its 2024 Sustainability Report ICBC reports that it works with its clients and customers to encourage sustainable practices and enable sustainable economic activities as follows:

As a responsible financial institution, ICBC has consistently integrated the principles of sustainable development into its deepened cooperation with customers, jointly fostering the coordinated advancement of the economy, society, and the environment.

ICBC has always prioritized the protection of consumer rights and interests as a key goal and essential management requirement within corporate governance. The bank has strengthened its overall planning for consumer protection and complaint handling at a high level, promptly revising and issuing relevant consumer protection policies, documents, and specialized management measures. Additionally, it established comprehensive consumer protection processes, including pre-emptive access and post-evaluation mechanisms, to ensure continuous enhancement of its consumer protection and governance capabilities. ICBC places great importance on safeguarding customers’ financial assets, intensifying efforts through measures such as preventing telecom fraud, upgrading alarm monitoring platforms, continuously improving security information service systems, and strengthening overseas security management support.

Furthermore, ICBC has continued to reinforce top-level design for data security and privacy protection by enhancing its data security and privacy frameworks. The bank has implemented multiple management measures to ensure the security of customer information and data, maintaining a robust defense against potential risks.

UN Principles for Responsible Banking: Accelerating a positive global transition for people and the planet

With over 300 signatory banks representing almost half of the global banking industry, the Principles for Responsible Banking are the world’s foremost sustainable banking framework. Through these Principles, the banking community takes action to align core strategies, decision-making, lending and investment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and international agreements such as the Paris Climate Agreement.

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References:

This case study is based on published information by ICBC, located at the link below. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses. However, we made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the report’s meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original please revert to the following link:

https://v.icbc.com.cn/userfiles/resources/icbcltd/download/2025/esg2024en.pdf

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