Sustainability is natural in the New Era as well

You no longer have to stack paper documents in the New Era of banking. You will find all your contracts and documents digitised in KB+ online banking. You can download them whenever you need. 

As early as 2020, we launched a new payment card, for the manufacture of which 85% of recycled plastics was used. In 2022, we gradually covered most of our card portfolio by recycled plastic cards. In 2023, we progressively shifted to 100% recycled plastics cards. By the end of 2023, we had issued 1,171,632 payment cards from recycled plastics, and 296,372 of them were 100% from recycled plastics. 

Our portfolio includes products that facilitate your transition to a sustainable lifestyle. We offer Sustainable Housing Mortgage Loans, Sustainable Technologies Loans, e-vehicle funding and investing in ESG funds to individuals. Bedsides traditional investment loans for sustainable projects, in 2022 we also started to offer new Green Loans and Sustainability Linked Loans to corporate clients. Working with ČEZ ESCO and SGEF, we provide a special product called Photovoltaic for One Koruna, which makes it possible for companies to use their own green energy without having to provide the initial capital. 

We have long strived to make our products and services friendly in many ways. We operate 158 branches and 724 ATMs that are barrier-free. Visually impaired people can also easily use the new KB+ online banking app. In the 2023 MasterCard Bank of the Year competition, we won The Bank without Barriers award for our activities in this respect. 

Working with MasterCard, in 2023 we started to issue payment cards with unique notches, Touch Cards, which make it easier for blind and partially sighted people to distinguish their payment card by type and orientation. In 2024, we will rollout this functional design element in the largest possible part of our card portfolio. 

As early as 2020, KB adopted the objective to reduce its emissions significantly and achieve carbon neutrality of its operations by 2026. Carbon neutrality means that we will minimise our carbon dioxide emissions and offset those that cannot be eliminated in any manner. In 2023, we reduced our carbon footprint by more than 60% compared with the base year 2019. 

We are a Golden signatory of the Diversity Charter. By signing the Diversity Charter, we have joined a strong group of companies that actively raise and contribute to the solution of societal issues. We have pledged to create a non-discriminating, supportive, and inspirational environment in which employees can develop and actualise their potential as best as possible. 

We provide advisory services in respect of subsidies, energy, renewable sources, circular economy, and waste management. The KB Advisory team has been broadened to include the ENVIROS consultancy. The two companies offer comprehensive advice for both private and public sectors in their investment and non-investments plans throughout the Czech Republic. 

Since the beginning of 2020, we have been checking our corporate clients’ environmental and social risks in a systematic and targeted manner, in particular those of companies operating in sensitive sectors. KB’s ESG experts carry out the screening. 

We appreciate clients’ efforts to mitigate their environmental impacts and we support projects that help both nature and society. In 2023, we signed new agreements on ESG investment loans totalling CZK 18.9 billion. 

We have decided to phase out the funding of clients associated with coal mining or use, primarily in the electricity and heat supply industries. We thus help to exert pressure on these companies to switch to cleaner energy sources. We have pledged to progressively reduce our funding of clients’ activities in the coal sector to zero by 2030. 

We have signed the CBA Sustainable Finance Memorandum, in which together with other banks we confirmed our commitment to create a business environment conducive to the country’s sustainable and socially responsible development. The Czech Banking Association’s member banks have set up a Sustainable Finance Commission. Ms Hana Kovářová, KB’s Executive Director, Brand Strategy and Communication, was elected as the Commission Chair. The Commission is addressing the question of how specifically banks can help to create the conditions for the sustainable development of the Czech Republic. 

October 2023 saw the launch of a standardised banking ESG questionnaire that we will use for obtaining ESG information from our clients. The questionnaire has been developed under the auspices of the Czech Banking Association. Six banks have joined the initiative. The advantage for banks’ clients is that they complete the questionnaire only once and the other participating banks will be able to use the data without requiring the business to complete a similar questionnaire again. Completing and data updating in the banking ESG questionnaire is free of charge. 

For the fifth year, our employees are able to take one paid day off and help where help is needed. As the Main Partner we support, for example, the Clean Up Czechia volunteering event. A total of 567 KB employees used the volunteering day in 2022.

We are mitigating our environmental impact and also helping in the social area.