The largest financial services group in the Scandinavian and Baltic Sea region is developing a corporate social responsibility programme.
Nordea, which operates in Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and the Baltic states, has begun by issuing corporate citizenship principles to all employees.
It is now devising social and environmental performance indicators and a public social reporting strategy that will be web-based.
Sonja Lohse, group compliance officer responsible for CSR, said the programme would rely heavily on the involvement of staff at all levels. ‘We aim to have a very lean organization with just one group CSR officer supported by a team of committed employees,’ she said. ‘The next step will be to evaluate how key performance indicators can be created and integrated into management systems.’
Although Nordea’s CSR reporting is still at the design stage, Lohse said: ‘We decided not to go for stand-alone reports on aspects of CSR. Instead we aim to give a continuously updated overview on our website supported by formal reporting in our annual report.’
Nordea, which specializes in banking and insurance, says that interest shown both by shareholders and large clients, such as pension funds, churches and trade unions, has prompted it to develop a CSR programme. The group manages €95billion ($105bn, £66bn) on behalf of clients, including private banking.
Nordea will also adopt a group environmental policy this year.