WHAT MOVES AND MOTIVATES US.
›IN ENCOLOGICAL, SOCIAL
›IN ENCOLOGICAL, SOCIAL
AND ECONOMIC TERMS‹
Dear Sir/Madam,
What are our enduring memories of 2012? Germany and France both gained a new president, while the USA and Russia chose to keep familiar faces as their heads of state. New bailout programmes were put in place in Europe, but the future of the single currency and the financial situation in many eurozone countries remains uncertain. It was clear right from the start that the energy reform in Germany would come at a price, but last year forced many of us to face up to the fact that our electricity prices are set to keep rising increasingly sharply.
On top of all this, 2012 brought human tragedies as a result of natural disasters, such as Hurricane Sandy on the US eastern seaboard, and the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East. The banking sector also hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons once again. It emerged that several large banks had in fact manipulated the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR), the daily benchmark interest rate used for interbank lending. This news confirmed many people's long-standing distrust of large financial institutions.
However, 2012 was also a good year in many regards. As a cooperative bank, we were particularly delighted to see our values – such as trust and taking responsibility for local communities and one another – explicitly honoured by the United Nations. 2012 was the UN's International Year of Cooperatives, an initiative which highlighted the cooperative concept as a global success story. For us, the major growth of the cooperative business model in general and the successful development of our bank in particular mean that we are already thinking about the future and working to preserve the many assets and resources that we currently manage for coming generations.
Getting to the root of the issue: our definition of sustainability.
Sustainability has been a popular buzzword for years now. Policy-makers, business leaders and academics are all increasingly reminding us how important it now is to promote sustainability. However, this idea is nothing new. It has always been anchored in the fundamental Christian belief that creation should be preserved for the future. BANK IM BISTUM ESSEN has been committed to doing just this ever since it was established. The term sustainability was originally coined by the forestry expert Hans Carl von Carlowitz back in the 18th Century at the court of electoral Saxony in Freiberg to describe the long-term protection and preservation of trees and woodland.
Last year, we – the BIB team – decided to reach for our spades and plant saplings near Ratingen as a symbolic way of remembering Carlowitz's legacy. It was all about getting back to the roots of sustainability. With this experience in mind, we would like to use our 2012 annual report to show you how sustainability can really be put into practice, what our customers and staff associate with sustainability, and how we as a bank integrate sustainability into all our business activities as an overarching principle. On the next few pages, we would like to invite you to go on a little journey back to the origins of sustainability by seeing what happens when very different people pick up a spade, plant a tree and tell us what sustainability means in their profession or their company.
We hope that you enjoy reading our 2012 annual report. If you agree with what you read, then get involved with BIB FairBanking and become a member of a sustainable cooperative bank in which value-based actions are part of daily practice, not just an advertising slogan. You can make a difference as a member of our bank or as a benefactor and donor for our BIB FAIRBANKING foundation.
Dear Sir/Madam,
What are our enduring memories of 2012? Germany and France both gained a new president, while the USA and Russia chose to keep familiar faces as their heads of state. New bailout programmes were put in place in Europe, but the future of the single currency and the financial situation in many eurozone countries remains uncertain. It was clear right from the start that the energy reform in Germany would come at a price, but last year forced many of us to face up to the fact that our electricity prices are set to keep rising increasingly sharply.
On top of all this, 2012 brought human tragedies as a result of natural disasters, such as Hurricane Sandy on the US eastern seaboard, and the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East. The banking sector also hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons once again. It emerged that several large banks had in fact manipulated the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR), the daily benchmark interest rate used for interbank lending. This news confirmed many people's long-standing distrust of large financial institutions.
However, 2012 was also a good year in many regards. As a cooperative bank, we were particularly delighted to see our values – such as trust and taking responsibility for local communities and one another – explicitly honoured by the United Nations. 2012 was the UN's International Year of Cooperatives, an initiative which highlighted the cooperative concept as a global success story. For us, the major growth of the cooperative business model in general and the successful development of our bank in particular mean that we are already thinking about the future and working to preserve the many assets and resources that we currently manage for coming generations.
Getting to the root of the issue: our definition of sustainability.
Sustainability has been a popular buzzword for years now. Policy-makers, business leaders and academics are all increasingly reminding us how important it now is to promote sustainability. However, this idea is nothing new. It has always been anchored in the fundamental Christian belief that creation should be preserved for the future. BANK IM BISTUM ESSEN has been committed to doing just this ever since it was established. The term sustainability was originally coined by the forestry expert Hans Carl von Carlowitz back in the 18th Century at the court of electoral Saxony in Freiberg to describe the long-term protection and preservation of trees and woodland.
Last year, we – the BIB team – decided to reach for our spades and plant saplings near Ratingen as a symbolic way of remembering Carlowitz's legacy. It was all about getting back to the roots of sustainability. With this experience in mind, we would like to use our 2012 annual report to show you how sustainability can really be put into practice, what our customers and staff associate with sustainability, and how we as a bank integrate sustainability into all our business activities as an overarching principle. On the next few pages, we would like to invite you to go on a little journey back to the origins of sustainability by seeing what happens when very different people pick up a spade, plant a tree and tell us what sustainability means in their profession or their company.
We hope that you enjoy reading our 2012 annual report. If you agree with what you read, then get involved with BIB FairBanking and become a member of a sustainable cooperative bank in which value-based actions are part of daily practice, not just an advertising slogan. You can make a difference as a member of our bank or as a benefactor and donor for our BIB FAIRBANKING foundation.
 |
 |
 |
|