The company discloses what qualitative and/or quantitative as well as temporally defined sustainability goals have been set and operationalised and how their level of achievement is monitored.
OLB’s objectives are defined in its business strategy, both on the level of the entire bank and on the level of its business fields and are put in concrete terms and applied in the operation by the individual specialist departments. The Bank’s Private Client business unit, for instance, pursues the aim of modernisation with focus on the client and to adapt to the changed behaviour of clients. Core objective of the Corporates & SME business field and of the business field of Specialized Lending is to expand their earnings potentials based on existing, long-term business relations, and to achieve further profitability.
The business strategy is reviewed regularly on the basis of a clearly defined review process and comprises, in particular, a control of the implementation and effectiveness of any objectives and measures defined in the previous year. Moreover, the degree of achievement and the status of implementation of all defined objectives and topics is monitored during the year by regular internal monitoring and reports and such are published externally according to the legal provisions (e.g. in the Financial Report, Disclosure Report or in the Non-Financial Report). In addition to the prescribed external audits performed by its auditor or the Financial Supervisory Authority, OLB also subjects itself regularly to several product, service and unit tests (e.g. TÜV quality seal).
Given the essential ecological aspects, OLB aims at continuously reducing both its consumption of energy and paper and its CO2 emissions. In December 2019, OLB specified target figures for the share of women in the Board of Directors and in the two management levels below the Board and set these percentage rates to 25 % in order to implement the German Act on an Equal Participation of Women and Men in Leadership Positions of the Private Economy and Public Service. The Bank wishes to achieve these targets by December 2023. It is aware that it will only be successful in the long term as an enterprise, if women will equally be promoted based on a sustainable concept and are deployed in leadership positions based on their performance.
OLB committed itself to promoting diversity in the company from an early stage. For this purpose, it created supportive conditions, aligned its human resources processes on this goal and took different measures. In addition to offers ensuring a better compatibility of family and profession, these range from personnel promotion programmes via targeted preparations for future tasks to mentoring of future officers during which participants may benefit particularly from female officers with long years of experience.
Another objective of OLB is to strengthen the health resources of employees and to create favourable conditions to that end. The implementation of a corporate health management at OLB supports employees and officers in their efforts to preserve and improve their health, by creating healthy conditions in the operation and offering options to promote health. By doing so, the company exceeds the objectives of merely complying with the existing legal regulations.
For OLB, the objectives mentioned above each have the same priority. Insofar as they overlap, these objectives contribute to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) which were agreed by the UN member states on an international level as a political guideline to safeguard a sustainable development on an economic, social or ecological level. That relates, for example to SDG no. 3 “Good Health and Well-Being“ or no. 5 “Gender Equality“. In addition, OLB contributes to achieving other SDGs, such as e.g. no. 7 “Affordable and Clean Energy“ or goal no. 9 “Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure” when it grants loans, since such enable projects, in particular in the fields of renewable energy and agriculture.