Bank Millennium's long-term activities for sustainable development and making them an integral part of the Group's business strategy have once again been appreciated with the CSR Leaf of the Polityka weekly. The "Golden CSR Leaf" award was presented to Magdalena Trzynadlowska, Director of the Sustainability Office of Bank Millennium by Jerzy Baczyński, Editor-in-Chief of the Polityka weekly.

Activities for sustainable development have been an integral part of the Business Strategy of the Bank Millennium Group for many years. The ESG area has also been included in the new strategy for 2022-2024. The commitment of the Bank and the Group to sustainable development in the environmental, social and corporate governance area with respect to the main stakeholder groups is presented in detail in the 2021 ESG Reportlink otwiera się w nowym oknie, which is the sixteenth annual non-financial report of the Bank Millennium Group.

In the new strategy, the Bank has for the first time set climate protection targets: halving its own greenhouse gas emissions in 2022 compared to 2020 and plans to achieve climate neutrality for the Bank's own emissions by 2027 and full climate neutrality by 2050. The Bank Millennium Group is also to actively support clients in their decarbonisation efforts and will provide 2 billion PLN in financing to the Bank's and the Bank's Group's clients for sustainable and transformational projects over the next 3 years. The Bank has been involved in environmental activities, including financing energy-efficient investments, for years.

For Bank Millennium, it is important not only to achieve the goals set out in the strategy, but also how to achieve them, commitment to society and the natural environment, acting in accordance with high standards of quality and ethics in the process of sales and services offered. The name of the new strategy "People inspire us" emphasises the importance attached to taking into account the opinions of employees, as well as customers and the community in which the Bank operates. The growing importance of ESG issues for the operations of the Bank Millennium Group was reflected in the establishment of the Sustainability Committee and the Sustainability Office.

"Another CSR Leaf award is not only an appreciation of the high quality of Bank Millennium's sustainable activities so far. It is also a confirmation of the correctness of the chosen course that includes ESG issues as an integral part of the Bank's business strategy. We were, are and will be a responsible institution, positively influencing society, economy and the environment – says Magdalena Trzynadlowska, Director of the Sustainability Office at Bank Millennium.

The special guest of this year's Polityka CSR Leaves Gala was professor Szymon Malinowski, atmospheric physicist and professor of Earth sciences, director of the Institute of Geophysics of the University of Warsaw. In 2020, during the Millennium Docs Against Gravity festival, with Bank Millennium as its patron for 17 years, professor Szymon Malinowski was honoured with the Award for the Greatest Personality of the Festival.

CSR Leaves, the annual list of most socially engaged companies, is being prepared since 11 years already by the Polityka weekly in cooperation with Deloitte consulting company and the Responsible Business Forum. This year, not only the activities of companies in the area of sustainable development for 2021 were evaluated, but also activities in the area of environmental protection, social responsibility and corporate governance (ESG). Due to the current situation on the market and the commitment of companies and organisations to Ukraine, the organisers also decided to assess the potential of companies' commitment to Ukraine and to identify the main barriers related to these activities and assistance. This year, for the first time, the CSR Green Leaf was awarded – for companies for which the reduction of negative impact on the climate, prevention of climate change and adaptation to these changes are key elements of strategic activities in business and in relations with stakeholders, including suppliers, business partners, employees and customers.

(in the photo from the left: Jerzy Baczyński, editor-in-chief of the Polityka weekly, Magdalena Trzynadlowska, Director of the Sustainability Office of Bank Millennium, Prof. Szymon Malinowski, Director of the Institute of Geophysics, the University of Warsaw)