Case study: How Santander takes action on its PRB targets: climate change and financial health and inclusion

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.

Santander’s materiality assessment incorporates feedback from customers, employees, senior managers, investors, supervisors, regulators, and NGOs. Their input was crucial in understanding the impact, risk, and opportunities related to sustainability matters. This stakeholder feedback enriched Santander’s double-materiality assessment.

Santander primarily engaged its stakeholders through surveys, the most direct method for integrating their feedback into the materiality assessment. Additionally, Santander conducted interviews with its teams to expand on the gathered information.

The findings were fairly consistent across the six stakeholder groups surveyed. Their main concerns centred around combating climate change, protecting customer data, ensuring transparency, and promoting inclusion. Beyond the annual materiality assessment, Santander continuously runs active listening and engagement initiatives throughout the year. Santander conducts surveys and maintains speak-up channels for employees and customers, also evaluating external factors to identify risks and opportunities and to measure its community impact. Santander addresses the needs of analysts, investors, rating agencies, and NGOs; stays updated with new regulations and global best practices; and participates in consultations with authorities, trade bodies, and other organizations on sustainability. Furthermore, Santander is involved in major local and international initiatives to support inclusive and sustainable growth.

What actions were taken by Santander on its PRB targets, climate change and financial health and inclusion?

In its 2023 Annual Report Santander reports that it took the following actions on its PRB targets, climate change and financial health and inclusion:

• SMART Target 1: Climate change
• Santander initiated the implementation of its financed emissions reduction targets by engaging with customers on climate issues, gathering data as part of its analysis on the risk of exclusion, and linking targets to senior executives’ remuneration. In 2023, Santander extended this approach to sectors beyond power generation, such as oil and gas, steel, and aviation, setting tailored targets for each sector.
• Santander’s approach aims to facilitate the achievement of emissions targets and develop a comprehensive understanding of customers’ strategies for transitioning to low-carbon business models.
• Santander’s strategy is based on governance procedures managed by its customer relations and risk teams, with oversight from senior managers to guide Santander’s portfolio management. This approach follows four stages: gather, assess, engage, and review. Santander utilized several internationally recognized references, including the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership’s (CISL) ‘Let’s Discuss Climate’ guide, adapting them to its specific needs and objectives.

• SMART Target 2: Financial health and inclusion
• After achieving its goal in 2022 to financially empower 10 million people, Santander undertook the following in 2023:
  • Conducted a study using reliable public information, such as data from the World Bank, to identify barriers to financial services in its key markets. Based on this study and its ongoing initiatives, Santander set a new target to financially empower 5 million people between 2023 and 2025.
  • Updated its methodologies for measuring the number of people it financially empowers and who benefit from Santander’s financial education programme.
  • Began reporting its progress quarterly through automated controls to ensure the quality and consistency of information.
• In 2023, Santander further financially included 1.8 million people through access and lending solutions.

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 Santander, 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.santander.com/content/dam/santander-com/en/documentos/informe-financiero-anual/2023/responsible_baking-ifa-2023-consolidated-annual-financial-report-en.pdf

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