Case study: How Mediobanca promotes a culture of responsible banking among its employees

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.

Mediobanca considers it crucial to incorporate the perspectives and expectations of its stakeholders. During the first half of 2025, it conducted a stakeholder engagement exercise as part of the Double Materiality Assessment (DMA), undertaken in preparation for the CSRD FY 2024-25 reporting.

Below are some updates on initiatives described in the 2024 PRB Report, specifically related to the prioritized impact areas.

Climate

In line with the objectives outlined in the Mediobanca Group Transition Plan to publish research and reports emphasizing the importance of policies to address climate change, several initiatives have been undertaken, including the following:

• The third “Mediobanca Energy Transition Conference for French Investors” was held in Paris on April 9, 2025, attracting participation from numerous French institutional investors through one-on-one and group meetings. The event served as a platform to discuss future market scenarios and investment opportunities alongside management teams from leading Italian companies in the energy transition sector.
• In 2025, Mediobanca Research – Utilities & Infrastructures focused on key topics related to the energy transition, including European energy policy, increasing electricity demand, renewable energy development, power price cannibalization, and hydrogen production.
• The Mediobanca Research Area continues to examine the impact of sustainability issues and assess how Italian mid-cap family businesses are responding to green challenges, often in collaboration with third parties. Notably, the annual economic and financial analysis in the “24th Report on Italian Medium-Sized Industrial Enterprises” (produced with Unioncamere and the Guglielmo Tagliacarne Research Centre) has been expanded to include a paper on “Competitive Landscape, ESG, and Strategic Innovation for Value Creation in Italian Medium-Sized Industrial Enterprises.” This paper offers cyclical, forecast, and structural insights derived from surveys conducted by the research centres.

Financial Education and Inclusion

Mediobanca continues its collaboration with Junior Achievement, the world’s largest non-profit organization dedicated to economic and business education in schools. The financial education and career guidance program, “CONTA SUL FUTURO!” (“Count on the Future”), aimed at middle school students, has been launched to enhance younger generations’ understanding of financial topics. The program involves Group volunteers acting as “company experts,” working alongside teachers in middle and high schools during lessons on economics, business studies, and personal finance. During the 2024–25 school year, the program, offered free of charge to schools across Italy, engaged: 109 schools, 580 classes, 11,584 students, 394 teachers, and 128 volunteers—86 of whom were from the Mediobanca Group. Additionally, the program reached 105,890 students through digital content.

As highlighted in the 2024 PRB Report, Mediobanca Premier has also launched a women’s empowerment initiative, targeting female clients.

Furthermore, a training course has been introduced to improve the Group’s staff knowledge on Financial Health and Inclusion topics.

Social Inclusion

During the first Mediobanca CSR Conference titled “Migrations and Inclusion: The Reception of Unaccompanied Foreign Minors,” held on December 20, 2024, the Mediobanca Research Area presented an in-depth study entitled “The Economic Impacts of Migration: Problem or Resource?” The comprehensive report, published on April 23, 2025, analyses economic and social data related to migration flows and their effects.

How does Mediobanca promote a culture of responsible banking among its employees?

In its 2025 PRB Report Mediobanca reports that it took the following actions to promote a culture of responsible banking among its employees:

Mediobanca is dedicated to promoting a culture of responsible banking among its employees and organizes various ESG-related initiatives, including the multi-year ESG Programme, ESG Working Groups, and the training and induction sessions outlined in the 2024 PRB Report (see section 5.2, pages 32–33). These initiatives continued as planned under the CSRD FY 2024-25 framework.

Employees regularly participate in ESG training, with three courses mandatory for all staff:

• Sustainability and ESG (launched in 2021, completed by 99% of Group employees)
• Human Rights (launched in 2023, completed by 98% of Group employees)
• Financial Health & Inclusion (launched in 2024, completed by 94% of Group employees)

Role-specific training is also offered. For instance, at Mediobanca Premier, in addition to the EFPA ESG Advisor certification pathway, 998 staff members—representing 97.7% of the total sales network workforce —completed the ESG module included in the 2024 MiFID II refresher course.

Since June 2025, targeted training on major greenwashing risks has been provided annually to employees involved in client and public communications.

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.

FBRH Principles for Responsible Banking (PRB) Assurance:

First class PRB assurance services: The result of solid, hands-on ESG/ Sustainability experience

• • • FBRH is a GRI Certified Training Partner (Global), ISEP Training Centre and a member of CPD.
    • FBRH builds trust. Over 200 reviews from top professionals from around the world demonstrate our ability to build strong, trusting business relationships.
    • FBRH possesses a unique skill set that combines ESG/sustainability certified training, experience in advisory services and report preparation, and ESG/sustainability report assurance.

The combination of all the above empowers FBRH to provide first class Principles for Responsible Banking (PRB) assurance services.

References:

This case study is based on published information by Mediobanca, 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://www.mediobanca.com/static/upload_new/une/unep-fi-prb-.pdf

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