Sustainability governance

Sustainability is well integrated in Handelsbanken’s working methods and governance.
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Organisational structure for sustainability

How we work

At Handelsbanken, we feel it natural to integrate sustainable thinking in our decision making. A decentralised way of working, close to the customer. We also have a designated team working with co-ordinating the sustainability work in the Group's overall operations.

Policies and guidelines

Other than regulations and national laws, we also have policies and guidelines. The policies are revised by the board every year, and guidelines issued by the CEO supplement and clarify the policies. We also have policies and guidelines for Handelsbanken's subsidiaries. 
Policy documents and guidelines

Contact 

If would like to get in touch with us regarding the Bank’s sustainability work, please contact us by e-mail. We will get back to you as soon as possible.

E-mail:
sustainability@handelsbanken.se

Our experts

Sustainability reporting 

Handelsbanken’s Annual and Sustainability Report contains Handelsbanken’s statutory sustainability reporting as required under the Annual Accounts Act. Unless otherwise stated, the information reported refers to the entire Group. The Sustainability Report is based on stakeholder dialogue undertaken at regular intervals and a materiality analysis carried out in 2022. The Sustainability Report contains descriptions of the Bank’s sustainability governance, business models and processes, as well as activities conducted during the year. To complement the Sustainability Report Handelsbanken also publishes a Sustainability Factbook including detailed breakdowns of results, GRI indexes and Handelsbanken’s reporting under the Principles for Responsible Banking (PRB). The Sustainability Report has been reviewed by the Bank’s external auditors. 

Handelsbanken has begun to review the requirements in the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and will continue to work towards implementing expanded reporting requirements.

Reports and presentations

Risk management 

Sustainability risk can arise in any of the Bank's roles and operations. It is important to anticipate and manage sustainability risk, for financial and legal reasons as well as for the Banks reputation. Our efforts for managing sustainability risk follow the Bank’s decentralised model and are in line with the Bank's low tolerance of risk. The Bank's business operations bear the responsibility for identifying sustainability risk and managing it. This is done within a framework of established processes for risk and management.

Suppliers

We have an ongoing dialogue with our suppliers. When making purchasing decisions we assess how the suppliers work and their policies regarding sustainability. We have also implemented a code of conduct for major suppliers that we expect them to follow. As a result we see a positive link between the code, our ongoing dialogues with our suppliers and their sustainability activities.

Handelsbanken Supplier Code of Conduct (pdf)

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The goals we focus on

In our work towards a more sustainable future we have chosen to focus on six of the sustainable development goals.

The Sustainable Development Goals