2014 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT
Chairman’s Message
As our stakeholders may recall, Ziraat Bank’s first sustainability report was prepared according to the G3.1 standard and it was certified as being fully compliant with GRI’s A+ level reporting parameters. Our 2014 report was prepared to be compatible and fully compliant with new-generation global reporting criteria. For this report, which has been composed according to the “Comprehensive” option (the broadest expression of the G4 standard), we have adopted a methodology that requires us to be much more transparent and much more focused. Furthermore because this report is the first such to be prepared according to the G4 standard by a state-owned bank in Turkey, it also constitutes a valuable model and reference.
In the process of achieving robust development and building the future, we regard sustainability as one of the essential elements that show Ziraat Bank and its stakeholders the way forward.
We conduct our activities in a state of synergetic interaction with a community of stakeholders that is extensive and global in scale. Our core stakeholders consist of our shareholder, our employees, our customers, and our suppliers; in the broadest sense our stakeholders also include regulatory agencies, international financial institutions and investors, media concerns and professional organizations, and society at large. We focus on conducting our operations in collaboration with all of our stakeholders in a manner which is mutually respectful and which balances everyone’s interests. We believe that this approach is crucially important to sustainability.
In Ziraat Bank’s view, sustainability means ensuring the viability of an ecosystem that will allow all of its stakeholders to completely satisfy all of their needs not just today but equally so in the future as well. The Ziraat Bank Sustainability Policy sets out the conditions that must exist in order for people and nature to interact in productive harmony. It provides a way not just for us but for future generations as well to satisfy their social, economic, and communal needs.
In line with this, we have come to recognize issues that are of the utmost concern on the global agenda–among them climate change, the transition to a low-carbon economy, and social development–as being high-priority matters of our own. Our invariable objective is to make a beneficial difference in these areas in the conduct of our business. We believe that in order to ensure the sustainability of their growth and profitability, companies need to be mindful of the futures of the community and environment in which they live and that they should engage in comprehensive efforts for the sake of improvement and progress.
A successful pioneer and leader under every condition throughout its long history and a financial institution that has constantly contributed to the development of the surroundings in which it operates, Ziraat Bank’s immutable aims are:
The means whereby we may achieve these aims are embodied entirely in the transformation that we have been managing strategically for the last three years.
We are aware that transformation is an ongoing process and that it demands steadfastness. Ziraat Bank continues to renew itself, regards the customer as the focal point of all of its operations, and fulfills the stringent requirements of today’s competitive environment as a pioneering and responsible leader.
Ziraat Bank operates at 85 locations in 16 countries around the world. Besides being a global service provider, Ziraat Bank is also a natural bridge in Turkey’s commercial relationships with international markets.
It is when all of these attributes are taken into account together that the meaning, importance, and indispensability that strategic management has for us becomes evident.
We regard our customers, our human resources, our strength to produce long-term performance, our strong balance sheet, and our corporate governance structure as the cornerstones of our approach to sustainability.
Our customers are the reason for our existence and the bedrock of our sustainability. Their regard, confidence, and loyalty make up the cement that has held together the sectoral leadership of the Ziraat Bank brand for a hundred and fifty-two years. Our fundamental and immutable goal is to give our customers the experience of the very best service that our sector has to offer and to make our strongly-valued products and services a part of their lives. Feedback received from our customers shows that they are becoming increasingly more satisfied with what we do and that is what encourages us to act even more imaginatively.
Let no one doubt but that Ziraat Bank owes its sustainability to its employees as well. In order to ensure that this fact remains true, we constantly invest in our human resources and equip our personnel with the competencies made necessary by today’s rapidly changing and developing business world. At Ziraat Bank we give special importance to cultivating a motivational environment that encourages teamwork.
It gives me pleasure to say that, as demonstrated by quantifiable performance criteria of every kind, our Bank is successfully maintaining a consistent human resources experience.
Under the heading of our sustainable and long-term performance objective, we are undertaking all of our investments with an approach that is mindful of operational costs and effectiveness. We are successfully keeping our cost base under control while pursuing without letup our efforts to diversify our sources of revenue in ways that are compatible with market conditions.
Advanced corporate governance practices that are fully compliant with the requirements of law are of crucial importance to our ability to create, maintain, and increase brand and stakeholder value. At the same time we also give importance to sustainability management and regard it as an essential element of our corporate governance structure.
2015, the year we have prepared this report for publication, was witness to new undertakings and successes on our Bank’s part. It was also a year in which Ziraat Bank abided by its Sustainability Policy as it pursued its goals of:
We are determined both to take a multidimensional approach in the conduct of our activities with respect to such issues and to deploy the extraordinary financial leverage that the scale of our operations makes possible in order to expand the scope of sustainability.
When our suppliers, employees, and the millions of firms and individuals to which we have lent are taken into account as a whole, the dimensions and extent of Ziraat Bank’s contributions to and impact on economic development and social wellbeing become unmistakably apparent. Ziraat Bank seeks to provide this huge community with guidance and leadership in order both to strengthen the foundations of sustainability throughout society at large and to create a multiplier effect that amplifies the added value that the Bank generates itself.
Helping our country’s farmers to make the best possible use of water and other natural resources, to increase their productivity, and to strengthen themselves competitively; increasing the production capacity of our country’s SMEs and encouraging them to further improve their operational conditions in light of universal values; and achieving greater energy and all other resource use efficiency in every business in every sector are just a few of the countless ways in which we can work together with our stakeholders to create more value.
We are of the opinion that not just governments but also private sector concerns, civil-society initiatives, universities and indeed everyone else have important duties and responsibilities with respect to sustainable development.
Ziraat Bank for its part stands ready to assume even more duties on a journey which is of concern to the future of our planet and to the people who live on it and which will affect the affluence and living conditions of each and every one of us.
One of Ziraat Bank’s most vital goals therefore is to achieve this by marshalling all of its self-confidence, energy, dynamism, institutionalized business processes, IT infrastructure, superior human resources, and unrivaled financial strength.
In closing and speaking both personally and on behalf of the Board of Directors, I offer my appreciation to everyone for their confidence in, contributions to, support for, and choice of the Ziraat brand.
I also invite our stakeholders to share with us their own views and opinions about our sustainability performance by sending them to our e-mail address on surdurulebilirlik@ziraatbank.com.tr.
Very truly yours,
Muharrem KARSLI
Chairman of the Board of Directors
