SUSTAINABILITY IN THE WORLD

1992
Launched in 1992, the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) today has more than 140 international members who continue to expand and strengthen the world banking industry’s awareness of environmental issues.

1999
Launched in 1999, the Dow Jones Sustainability Index was the first global index that sought to track the performance of the world’s leading companies that focused their attentions on sustainability.

In 1999, GRI principles started to gain recognition as a universally applicable guide for the voluntary reporting of organization’s sustainability performance.

2000
The UN Global Compact, which was introduced in 2000, is an initiative which brings together thousands of companies around the world in the effort to advance the compact’s ten principles related to human rights, labor, and anti-corruption.

The Carbon Disclosure Project, which was launched in 2000, is a non-profit independent initiative which manages an international data base in track is kept of the climate change performance achieved by the world’s leading concerns.

The UN Millennium Development Goals are eight principles which were officially established following the Millennium Summit in 2000, where all world leaders present adopted the United Nations Millennium Declaration.

2003
The Equator Principles, which were launched in 2003, define voluntary standards concerning the identification and management of the social and environmental risks involved in project finance.

2005
The Kyoto Protocol, which was signed in 1997 and went into effect in 2005, sets targets for the worldwide reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

2006
The first sustainable banking awards, developed jointly by the International Finance Corporation (a member of the World Bank Group) and the Financial Times, were announced in London in 2006.

SUSTAINABILITY AT TSKB

1980
TSKB introduced its first environmental initiatives and sowed the seeds of the first models of today’s sustainable banking in the 1980s. Since then it has been a financial services provider which, on its own initiative, regularly takes environmental factors into account as part of its credit assessment processes and is especially careful that the projects it finances fulfill their environmental obligations.

1990
In the 1990s, TSKB began tapping international markets for resources with which to finance environment-related investments and became the first bank to extend environment-related loans to Turkish industry.

2005
In 2005 TSKB took an important step in the direction of sustainable banking with the establishment of its Environment Management System.

2006
In 2006 TSKB passed another milestone on its journey towards sustainable banking by issuing formal statement in which its environment policy was publicly announced to all stakeholders.

2007
In early 2007 TSKB’s Environment Management System was awarded ISO 14001 certification. The same year, the Bank launched its www.cevreciyiz.com internet portal with the aim of informing the public about environmental issues. Another important development in 2007 was the introduction of the environmental risk evaluation tool (ERET) as part of the Bank’s project assessment model.

2008
TSKB received the “Sustainable Bank of the Year Award” in the “Eastern Europe” category for the first time in 2008.

2009
TSKB received the “Sustainable Bank of The Year Award” in the “Eastern Europe” category for the second time in 2009 and also became Turkey’s first carbon-neutral bank. Another important development took place in 2009 when TSKB joined UNEP FI. The same year, the Bank joined the Global Reporting Initiative as an organizational stakeholder by adopting that initiative’s principles as its fundamental guide in the conduct of its own sustainability reporting. TSKB also score another social responsibility first this year by inaugurating cevreciyiz.TV broadcasts.

2010
TSKB received the “Sustainable Bank of The Year Award” in the “Eastern Europe” category for the third time in 2010. At the very beginning of the year the Bank became the first member of the Turkish financial services industry to supply its stakeholders with a GRI-checked sustainability report. Another important step forward taken by TSKB in 2010 was its participation in the Carbon Disclosure Project. The Bank also signed the UN Global Compact this year as well.

At the beginning of 2011, TSKB announced its support of the Water Disclosure Project.

In June 2011, TSKB published its first Global Compact COP.