KfW Group maps all of its new business to the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals for first time

• Alignment with SDGs is part of the “KfW Roadmap Sustainable Finance” project aimed at strategically developing KfW Group
• Transparency on KfW’s contributions to achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
• Thanks to the methods used, new commitments can be automatically mapped to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on a yearly basis in future

Today, for the first time, KfW is publishing detailed information on how the promotional bank and its subsidiaries are contributing to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through their financing activities.

KfW is already committed to the SDGs under its promotional and financing mandate. To map each year’s new business to the 17 goals and the 169 associated targets, KfW developed a standardised process in-house that takes 1,500 indicators into account. With this systematic, automated approach KfW is a pioneer and makes its efforts to meet the SDGs transparent both at group and business sector level. Thanks to the method developed, new commitments can be automatically mapped to the 17 SDGs on a yearly basis in future.

The group-wide mapping shows that 2018’s new financing commitments cover all 17 goals, reflecting KfW’s broad-based legal mandate. The financing encompassed four priority practice areas:

• SDG 8 – Decent Work and Economic Growth
• SDG 13 – Climate Action
• SDG 7 – Affordable and Clean Energy
• SDG 11 – Sustainable Cities and Communities

“The results of the SDG mapping confirm KfW Group’s consistent focus on strategic issues that will shape the future, such as climate protection, urban development and sustainable promotion of the economy. As a promotional bank, it’s a key concern of KfW to provide opportunities for sustainable development all around the world,” explains Dr Günther Bräunig, Chief Executive Officer of KfW Group. “In doing so, KfW is playing an active role in shaping the changes necessary for a sustainable economic and financial system.”

As part of the KfW Roadmap Sustainable Finance, which was decided in autumn 2018, KfW is aiming to review how further developments can be made in bank management within the context of sustainability by mid-2020. With its new Sustainability Mission Statement the promotional bank has presented the first results of its roadmap earlier this year. The first SDG mapping process presented today provides a strong starting point for its future development. A series of appropriate management strategies will be developed within the scope of the KfW Roadmap Sustainable Finance.

Service:
The KfW SDG mapping published today on the website presents not only the results of our work at group level, but also reflects the work of the individual business areas and contains an in-depth explanation of the methodology we have devised:
www.kfw.de/sdgs

There you will also find links to the Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) as well as to Germany’s National Sustainable Development Strategy