The Crédit Agricole Italia Banking Group’s Sustainable Approach (by Gianluca Reggioni)

The Crédit Agricole Italia Banking Group considers Corporate Social Responsi-bility to be a cornerstone of its corporate culture and a fundamental lever for its development. The objectives of social and environmental sustainability consti-tute a primary strategic guideline, which distinguishes the various corporate pro-cesses. This aspect, which we can define as a true identity factor, has been for-malised in the 2022 Strategic Plan, a growth project that is based on the bank’s relational model and expresses its raison d’être: Acting every day in the interests of cus-tomers and society.

The principles of responsibility and proximity are embodied in a management model that enhances the relationship of trust with all stakeholders in the area, prevents the risks of a constantly changing scenario, identifies and interprets the emerging needs of communities and supports the business fabric in line with local investments and sustainable growth requirements. An operating model, consistent with the strongly cooperative nature of the Group, capable of

involving the local area and assessing the impact of business activities, so as to create shared value among stakeholders and consolidate the relationship with the community.

How do these sensitivities manifest themselves in practice? We could make a deeply detailed list of examples showing how these principles can be translated into very concrete and effective actions and projects. Here, however, we would like to avoid a long list and emphasise, in particular, the importance of the FReD project; an initiative in which all Group entities are involved, sharing a series of Corporate Social Responsibility projects on which to develop their actions over time.

For several years now, this project has been establishing guidelines for social responsibility policies and assessing their evolution and developments, also through the development of a synthetic index, which expresses the contribution of each individual Group entity to the achievement of increasingly challenging sustainability objectives.

Within the framework of the FReD project, the entities of the Crédit Agricole Group undertake to implement CSR projects for each of the following sustain-ability areas:

• Trust: includes projects aimed at protecting customers’ interests and developing an accessible and tailored service offering in line with ethi-cal and transparency standards;

• Respect: includes initiatives relating to corporate welfare and labour re-lations. The issues addressed by projects in this area include: internal dialogue and participation, professional development, wellbeing and quality of work, defending equal opportunities and promoting a diver-sity-friendly corporate culture. This area also includes projects aimed at promoting the economic and socio-cultural development of the Group’s reference territories and involving stakeholders in Corporate Social Responsibility processes;

• Demetra: this area concerns projects aimed at protecting the environ-ment and the territory and combating climate change. This area in-cludes initiatives to reduce the direct environmental impact of the Group’s activities and the offering of services and credit products func-tional to the ecological innovation of local industrial activities and the development of the green economy.

The FRED index has been an integral part of the objectives of the Group’s man-agerial incentive schemes for years now; this circumstance underlines the im-portance of the subject and the desire to implement these projects through the strong and effective involvement of the entire Group.

A Concrete Example: the FReD ‘Special People’ Project

The enhancement of diversity as a strategic key is also the fundamental feature of the FReD ‘Special People’ project. The initiative involved the creation of a

‘Solidarity Laundry’, operating at ‘Green Life’, the Group’s headquarters, to fa-cilitate employees’ work-life balance and, at the same time, accompany people with disabilities in their working life cycle, preventing their early exclusion.

In fact, the use of the new laundry service includes washing, ironing and tailoring repairs, and involves employing people with disabilities. The latter are involved in work orientation paths through the partnership with the Biricc@ cooperative, which will offer a fundamental opportunity to accompany their life and profes-sional project. In addition to the washing, ironing and tailoring repair services, there is also a collection point for used clothing that is to be given to people in need. The garments received will be donated to families assisted by the associa-tion Di Mano in Mano of Parma, set up in the parish community of Roncopas-colo, and partly sold at a symbolic price in the second-hand clothes shop that the association has in the San Leonardo district of Parma (the proceeds of the sale are intended to finance the international missions that the cooperative runs in developing countries such as Cameroon, Congo, Madagascar, Albania, Rwanda and Benin).

Solidarity at 360°, which focuses on the enhancement of diversity and the theme of inclusion with a twofold objective: on one hand, it aims to contribute to the support of fragile people and the promotion of their employment in the territory;

on the other hand, to generate value for the community by focusing on a ‘broad’

concept of sustainability, which is green but at the same time revolves around people, which is fundamental especially for new generations and which is at the heart of the Group’s PMT and its DNA.

Centrality of People and Importance of Inclusion

The social responsibility model of the Crédit Agricole Italia Banking Group places fundamental attention on the issue of people’s inclusion and well-being.

The latter are in fact a fundamental asset of the Group: they are the heart of the human relationship typical of the Group’s way of doing banking, and it is thanks to their professional skills, availability, sensitivity and ability to generate trust that the bank can count on solid relations with the territories and focus on the devel-opment and innovation of the services offered. They represent the driving force behind the Group’s growth and evolution: safeguarding their well-being and pro-moting their professional growth is a strategic prerogative, protecting all types of diversity.

The Code of Ethics and the Code of Conduct regulate aspects relating to welfare, inclusion and the evaluation of diversity through specific guidelines for managing resources, their professional growth and assessing well-being within the working environment. The Charter of Respect describes the Group’s ethical principles regarding the protection of gender diversity and respect for the individual and promotes a working environment based on human relations, dialogue and col-laboration.

Within the Group, each person is encouraged and supported through training programmes that enhance individual skills and transversal paths and career plans that support professional growth, also at an international level. In addition to training and professional development programmes, there are also a number of initiatives aimed at protecting and promoting people’s wellbeing and valuing di-versity. These include work-life balance activities, which have earned the Group Family Audit Executive Certification, in recognition of its commitment to en-hancing the company climate and staff well-being.

Other examples are the collaboration with Valore D, to promote gender balance, which has been confirmed by the Group’s inclusion among the ‘Italy’s Best Em-ployers for Women’, or Inclusion Month (November 2020), a month of in-depth study with appointments and testimonials to discover the different faces of Di-versity: generational differences, disabilities and gender diversity.

Commitment to Support the Territories

In line with its vocation for proximity, the Group’s sustainability profile is also shown in its continuous proximity to the territories and their specific enhance-ment. In this regard, an example is certainly the project that led, following the earthquake in Central Italy, to the structural recovery and restoration, completed in 2020, of the Sala del Cantico delle Creature in Assisi. But there is more, be-cause the Bank’s commitment to accompanying the various local realities in their path to sustainable growth is also shown through different and innovative tools such as crowdfunding.

Indeed, with the aim of supporting small and large projects with a social purpose, CrowdForLife, the Group’s crowdfunding portal, was launched in 2019. CrowdFor-Life is configured as a real meeting point between non-profit organisations and associations, looking for funds to implement their ideas, and anyone wishing to directly support their projects, even with a small contribution.

Through the portal, it is possible to start fundraising in the ‘keep it all’ mode (whatever the amount reached at the end of the fundraiser, it is in any case do-nated to support the project and its aims), but also to join thematic initiatives.

One example? Crédit Agricole for Future, the first social call of the Crédit Agricole

Group in Italy to support projects united by common themes, such as education, inclusion and reduction of inequalities.

These are the main areas of intervention of the Crédit Agricole Group’s joint initiative in Italy, in line with objectives 4 and 10 of the 2030 Agenda for Sus-tainable Development. The Group’s commitment stems from a shared desire to provide an up-to-date response to a global and specific challenge: writing the future with long-term and sustainable objectives. Out of 35 candidate projects, 11 proposals were selected by a special Scientific Jury. The selected project or-ganisations had the opportunity to set up fundraisers to achieve their objectives thanks to the contribution of anyone who wished to support them. Crédit Agricole in Italy pledged to support the individual projects selected for Crédit Agricole for Future by doubling the amount collected through donations on the portal, up to a maximum of 50% of the goal of each fundraiser.