UmweltBank : Nachhaltigkeits- und Geschäftsbericht 2023 Englisch

Published: 2024-12-17 05:47:06 ET UBK.DE

Sustainability

and Annual

Report 2023

Updated version from 21.08.2024 (replaces the version from 31.05.2024)

2023

Letter from the Management Board

UmweltBank:

My money makes the world greener

About UmweltBank

Investing money sustainably

Financing for environmental projects

Germany's green bank share

Responsible corporate governance

Dialogue with stakeholders

Analysis of the main sustainability aspects

People at UmweltBank

Management Board

Supervisory Board

Environmental Advisory Board

Sustainable personnel policy

Please refer to the management report and notes on pages 112 and 158 for information on the changes in this version of the report compared to the version from 31.05.2024. The figures stated in the Letter from the Management Board (from page 4) and the Key financial figures on page 198 have been updated accordingly.

Contribution to the environment

Environmental management system

Environmental performance

Sustainability targets

Report of the Environmental Advisory Board

Contact the Sustainability Management

Validation of the environmental statement

Annual Report

Letter from the Chair of the Supervisory Board

110

Management report

112

Balance sheet

154

Income statement

156

Notes to the financial statements

158

Independent auditor's report

185

About this report

193

GRI content index

194

Publishing details and contact

199

2023

UmweltBank is changing

Dear Readers,

The 2023 financial year was a period of transition for UmweltBank. One important milestone was the migration of our core banking system in autumn. By successfully concluding this project, we have modernised our IT infrastructure appreciably and laid the foundations for the further digitalisation and scalability of our products. We experienced clear growth in new customers and investment following the completion of the migration in October 2023 and this trend has continued to this day.

A transitional year characterised by the transformation

The 2023 financial year was characterised by a challenging environment and the investment we made in our transformation. The interest result (€41.1 million) came under pressure in the past financial year due to the reversal in interest rate policy. The financial result of minus €2.6 million was significantly below the previous-year figure, which benefited from the one-off sale of a wind farm with proceeds of €20 million. The commissions and net trading income of around €9.1 million made a stable contribution to income.

Personnel expenses rose to €25.6 million in 2023, which was mainly due to new appointments in areas relating to regulatory supervision. The Bank employed 354 employees at the end of the year. Administrative expenses of €31.5 million were significantly higher than the previous year, although they were impacted by expenses of €10 million for the change in the core banking system.

On the bottom line, the Bank was able to achieve a net result of €0.7 million.

Together we are creating a world worth living in

We have been focusing on ecology and economy for more than 25 years. UmweltBank issued new environmental loans of more than €450 million in the last financial year alone. The loan portfolio stood at €3.7 billion, of which around 60% are for renewable energy projects and around 40% for the financing of sustainable real estate. In total, UmweltBank contributed to avoiding over 1,340,000 tonnes of CO2 in 2023. This is roughly equivalent to the annual CO2 emissions of the inhabitants of a large town like Wolfsburg. Last year, the Bank financed affordable and ecological homes for over 500 people. For another 80 people, care places were created in schools, daycare centres and nursing facilities.

We are focusing on our core competencies

UmweltBank has huge potential and our new corporate strategy will allow us to reach our peak performance in the coming years. On the one hand, we are completely reorganising the UmweltBank to benefit from synergies and boost efficiency, while on the other hand, we will focus in future on our core competencies - green investments and the financing of environmental projects.

We will focus more strongly on achieving growth with private customers by offering them attractive opportunities in the area of sustainable investment. In order to achieve this, we are rapidly expanding our private customer business and improving our efficiency, scalability and sales capabilities. We aim to significantly increase customer satisfaction by developing a completely digital customer experience and strengthening our personal customer service provision. Our products will thus offer our private investors the benefits of simple, digital and sustainable investments. This strategy is already proving a success. In the first six months of 2024, we were able to increase the number of customers by 10% or by more than 13,500 to around 145,000 customers. The deposit volume increased by €600 million in the same period.

In the lending business, we will focus in future on commercial customers with whom we can push forward the energy transition and construction of sustainable real estate. We aim to significantly improve our market shares in these areas over the coming years. For more than 25 years we have been exclusively financing sustainable projects and are well established and very well connected on the market. Our customers benefit from this wealth of experience and they often use us to finance more than one project. New business continues to be limited by available equity. If our capital resources were to increase, we would be able to issue substantially more loans.

We also want to significantly increase our private and corporate banking business in future and will continue our efforts to acquire new customers. We will support this growth with innovations, new products and investment. In the medium term, our aim is to become Germany's sustainable direct bank that positions itself on the market with a range of simple, digital and sustainable products and services.

We are pushing forward our transformation at high speed

Based on our current plans, we still anticipate that 2024 will be a transitional year characterised by both investment in technology and the organisational structure and also by costs related to the acquisition of private customer business. This will result in anticipated earnings before tax of minus €5

2023

million to minus €10 million. The Bank has significant contingency reserves for general banking risks of €142 million, which will be partially reversed to generate a positive net result in 2024.

We expect that the current financial year will mark a low point but also the turning point in earnings, after which the business will develop much more positively. Expenses will fall again after 2024 and will only increase at a disproportionately lower rate in subsequent years as a result of the scalable business model. At the same time, we want to significantly boost income, above all through a noticeable increase in customer deposits, intensified sales activities in the securities business, an annual increase in new lending business and an improved interest rate position in treasury.

We have ambitious targets for the period up to 2028. Amongst other things, we want to attract 500,000 customers to the UmweltBank, aim to issue new loans totalling more than €1 billion every year and want to achieve a return on equity (before tax) of at least 12%. These targets may seem ambitious but they are realistic if we resolutely follow the path set out in our strategy. Hand in hand with our loyal shareholders, faithful customers and motivated workforce we will unlock the full potential of our UmweltBank. At this point, we would like to take the opportunity to offer special thanks to these people for their tireless and passionate commitment.

The framework conditions could not be better for UmweltBank and offer us huge opportunities for growth over a long period of time. We will make good use of these opportunities! Thank you for your trust and loyalty. Continue to accompany UmweltBank and join us in shaping a world worth living in for us and future generations.

Your UmweltBank Management Board

Goran Bašić

Dietmar von Blücher

Heike Schmitz

Spokesperson of the

Member of the

Management Board

Dietmar von Blücher

Heike Schmitz

Goran Bašić

Spokesperson of the

Member of the

Management Board

(since 15 January 2024)

Management Board remit:

- Private customers

- 1.5, 2nd and 3rd line of defence

- Business customers

- Strategy, IT, projects

- Participating interests / treasury

2023

UmweltBank:

My money makes the world greener

2023

1.1

Corporate data as of 31 December 2023

The UmweltBank has focused on economy and ecology since it was founded in 1997. The green bank and its around 350 employees take care of around 132,000 private and commercial customers throughout Germany. UmweltBank's core competence is the financing of projects in the field of renewable energy sources as well as ecological and social construction projects. Whether timber houses, student residences or solar parks, the green bank has funded nearly 25,000 future-oriented projects since it was founded. It also offers sustainable savings accounts and securities. With its consistent focus on sustainability, UmweltBank contributes to its vision of creating a world worth living in for future generations.

Vision

Together we are creating a world worth living in for ourselves and future generations.

Mission

We make money green.

We combine economy and ecology by offering our customers at-

tractive investments and exclusively financing sustainable projects.

Company

Legal form

Headquarters

Foundation

Supervisory Board

Environmental Advisory Board

Management Board

Employees

Customers

Office locations

Funded environmental projects

Total assets

UmweltBank

Stock corporation (Aktiengesellschaft)

Nuremberg, Germany

1997

Susanne Horn

Dr Michael Kemmer, Chairperson

Heinrich Klotz

Dr Michael Maier

Edda Schröder

Silke Stremlau, Deputy Chairperson Chairperson

Prof. Dr Harald J. Bolsinger

Dr Meike Gebhard, Chairperson

Stefan Klinkenberg

Claudia Mülller, Deputy Chairperson

Heribert Sterr-Kölln

Goran Bašić, Member of the Management Board

Dietmar von Blücher, Spokesperson of the Management Board (since 15.01.2024)

Jürgen Koppmann, Spokesperson of the Management Board (until 31.12.2023)

Heike Schmitz, Member of the Management Board

Approx. 350

Approx. 132,000

Emilienstraße 3, Nuremberg /

Laufertorgraben 4, Nuremberg /

Laufertorgraben 6, Nuremberg /

Laufertorgraben 8, Nuremberg /

Nunnenbeckstraße 6-8, Nuremberg

More than 25,000 since foundation in 1997

€5.7 billion

2023

Corporate structure

Annual

General

Meeting

elects

Supervisory

Board

appoints and monitors

Sustainable products

Investments

Savings accounts

Financing

• Nursing care properties

Real estate

• UmweltFlexkonto

• Rental accommodation projects

• UmweltFestzins

• Commercial real estate

• Investor projects

securities

• Educational

facilities

• UmweltBank share

• Student resident projects

• Green bonds

• Eco funds

Renewable energy sources

• Wind power

• Photovoltaics

Member of the Management

Board

leads

appoints with the

consent

of the Supervisory

➔ Environmental

Board

Advisory

advises

Board

UmweltGarantie

Every euro that customers invest with UmweltBank is used in accordance with the SDG - the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. The Bank backs this with the UmweltGarantie (environmental guarantee). Customers can be confident that the savings deposits and equity are used exclusively for loans in support of environmental projects.

To check compliance with the UmweltGarantie, the Bank computes

E U

Umwelt

Garantie

W M U N

Management Board

remit

the ratio of the volume of utilised environmental loans, note loans for a specific purpose, participating interests, green and social bonds plus its own investments that made a positive SDG contribution, to the deposit volume of customers, third-party loans from development banks and the original equity brought into UmweltBank from investors.

Fulfilment is checked quarterly by Sustainability Management and the UmweltBank's Environmental Advisory Board. As at 31 December 2023, the UmweltGarantie was fulfilled in all areas.

2023

Design: Spengler-Wiescholek

New aesthetics for a sustainable future

UmweltBank celebrated the completion of the timber construction work on its new headquarters - the UmweltHaus - with a topping-out ceremony in April 2024. After its scheduled completion by the end of 2025, the UmweltHaus will become the new headquarters of UmweltBank in Nuremberg. The more than 350 employees currently working toward the vision of UmweltBank at various locations will then find a home together there. This multi-storey timber building offers modern, flexible and inspiring working environments with space for exchange and teamwork. Across the board, there is an equal focus on the needs of the employees and on the sustainability of the materials and furnishings. Besides the Bank's offices, the UmweltHaus will include additional office space for rent as well as a specialist organic food store with a café.

Around the UmweltHaus, there are also plans to construct a sustainable urban district with affordable housing, a childcare centre, businesses and public green spaces - the so-called UmweltQuartier (Environmental District).

Platinum standard sustainability

The German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB) also officially awarded a Platinum Standard pre-certificate to the UmweltHaus as part of the topping out ceremony. "This new timber-concrete hybrid building will make a contribution to environmental sustainability, the reduction in greenhouse gases, energy efficiency and the conservation of resources", explained Prof. Amandus Samsøe Sattler, President of the DGNB. The UmweltHaus will also be one of the first office buildings in Germany to be constructed in accordance with the "KfW Efficiency House 40 NH" energy efficiency standard. This construction project is thus in line with UmweltBank's principle of combining economy and ecology.

A future-oriented site made from renewable raw materials

Overall, around 3,000 cubic metres of timber will be used to construct the entire Um- weltHaus. Only the underground garage and the stairwells will be constructed using reinforced concrete for fire protection reasons. Roman Kreutmayr, Technical Manager at ZÜBLIN Timber, highlighted the rapid speed at which this multi-storey timber building had grown in 2023: "The UmweltHaus grew by a whole floor every week last year. This tremendous speed was only possible because we had pre-manufactured the external timber wall elements in our factory, before delivering them to the building site and simply piecing them together!"

Unique project with sustainable aesthetics

The experts involved believe that with its diversity of uses, its scale, the comprehensive energy concept and the combination of systematic timber construction and large- scale façade photovoltaics for the UmweltHaus, the project is currently one of a kind. Architect Ingrid Spengler also sees the timber construction of the UmweltHaus as an opportunity to rethink the aesthetics of buildings: "The fact that beautiful buildings are less likely to be demolished already makes them more sustainable. For us, this means that all materials have to be sustainable and so beautiful that they give rise to an aesthetic that makes sustainable construction come alive."

2023

1.2 Investing money sustainably

UmweltSpektrum:

The sustainable fund family for a future worth living in

UmweltBank offers its customers a wide range of green investments - from ecological savings products through to green securities. In dialogue, the Bank builds on honest and fair relationships. The focus is on the customer who we look after according to their individual needs. In the interest of customers and employees alike, the Bank deliberately eschews from any kind of sales quotas and individual commission payments. This independent and needs-oriented support ensures a high level of satisfaction.

Save

The UmweltSpektrum fund family is the result of years of active dialogue with UmweltBank customers. The fund's investment philosophy is based on UmweltBank's strict sustainability approach. Therefore, investments are made in hand-picked companies that stand out due to a particularly sustainable core business and act out of conviction.

UmweltSpektrum

Die Fondsmarke der UmweltBank.

Savers can invest their money in the short to long term at UmweltBank. It is the only bank in Germany to give the UmweltGarantie for savings investments. Every euro invested is used exclusively to finance environmental projects. All these offers are subject to German statutory deposit protection.

Invest

The UmweltSpektrum fund family

Sustainability-oriented investors are in good hands at UmweltBank, which offers an entirely green securities account - free of charge. Only selected ecological securities that correspond to the Bank's understanding of sustainability are available. The green bank does not hold other shares, such as those of oil producers and arms manufacturers, and thus guarantees a clean portfolio.

UmweltSpektrum Natur

The protect-the-environment fund

A global equity fund with an emphasis on environmental sustainability goals.

UmweltSpektrum Mensch

UmweltSpektrum Mix

The strengthen-the-communityThe shape-the-future fund

fund

A dynamic mixed fund focused on

A global equity fund with an

Europe that combines ecological

emphasis on social

and social values.

coexistence.

•

Affordable and clean

•

Health, well-being and no

•

Sustainable cities

energy

poverty

and communities

•

Climate protection

•

Quality education

•

Responsible consumption

measures

•

Peace, justice and

•

Focus on smaller and

•

Clean water and

strong institutions

medium-sized enterprises

sanitation facilities

Interested investors can find current information on the UmweltSpektrum brand funds at: www.umweltspektrum.de

2023

Selection process

All UmweltSpektrum-brand funds share a strict, three-stage selection process that considers exclusion criteria as well as the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as positive criteria. According to the EU Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), they qualify as so-called dark green funds (Article 9 funds).

1 UmweltBank exclusion criteria

As a first step, only assets that do not violate the exclusion criteria defined by UmweltBank are se-

lected. These include disregard for

human rights, military goods, genetic engineering, controversial environmental

or business practices, fossil fuels and nuclear energy.

2 UmweltBank acceptance conditions

In a second step, it is verified whether each of the remaining issuers makes a positive contribution to the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

3 Constant quality control

Ecological and social criteria

The UmweltBank experts take the final decision

for inclusion in the UmweltSpektrum funds after again

checking the issuers' ecological and social creditworthiness. The securities selected are subject to permanent screening -

including by the independent Environmental Advisory Board. In the event of

controversy, issuers are removed and investments sold if necessary.

Fund management may invest freely

within the certified investment universe. It does this by evaluating the

investments according to economic criteria.

The UmweltSpektrum fund family portfolio

The result is a fund portfolio that meets the highest environmental, social and economic standards thanks to rigorously selected and transparent criteria as well as ongoing evaluations and constant screening.

1.3 Financing for environmental projects

Since it was founded, the UmweltBank has exclusively financed sustainable projects - with an emphasis on renewable energies and ecological and social real estate, generally focusing on large-volume projects carried out by commercial customers. These customers can rely on a personal level of support, more than 25 years of experience and partnerships built to last.

Loans are only issued based on strict positive and exclusion criteria, which are defined in the Bank's publicly accessible financing principles. The Bank finances projects that lead to a sustainable improvement in current living conditions - in line with the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs). A whole series of financing sectors are also categorically excluded, such as the armaments industry or electricity generation using coal. The Um- weltBank finances sustainable projects in order to push forward the energy transition and promote the construction of sustainable real estate - fully in line with its vision of creating a world worth living in for future generations.

Transparent portfolio

UmweltBank has financed more than 25,000 environmental projects throughout Ger- many since 1997. Projects with a total volume of €459 million were newly financed in the past year alone.

The volume of loans granted (including open commitments) was more than €3.7 billion in 2023. A large portion of the loan portfolio consisted of residential, social and commercial real estate (38.3%). Solar energy financing had a share of

34.6%, while wind power projects accounted for around 21.6% of financing. With a share of 5.5%, the other lending volume includes, among other things, biomass, heating con- cepts, hydropower loans and sustainable agriculture.

Disclaimer

UmweltBank AG published this content on December 17, 2024, and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on December 17, 2024 at 10:46:05.248.