Sustainability has become one of the most pressing topics impacting our society today. This includes environmental aspects, such as climate change and resource scarcity, social aspects, such as human rights, financial inclusion and data privacy, and corporate governance aspects, such as board composition, anti-corruption and ethical business practices. Collectively, these are commonly referred to as ESG (Environment, Social, and Governance).
There is now increasing demand from investors, customers, regulators and our own employees for greater transparency of our approach to ESG issues. And we recognise the significant contribution QNB can make to society by adopting business practices to address these, especially through our financing activities. Furthermore, we believe that a proactive approach to sustainability strengthens QNB’s business resilience and supports sustainable financial performance.
In response to these external demands, and to support QNB’s vision to become one of the leading banks in the Middle East, Africa and South East Asia (MEASEA) by 2020, QNB has defined a Group-wide sustainability programme. This has been developed in alignment with national and international standards and guidelines, with particular focus on the objectives of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs), Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standards and the Qatar Stock Exchange (QSE) ‘Guidance on ESG reporting’.
At QNB, we define sustainability as the delivery of long-term value in financial, environmental, social and ethical terms, for the benefit of our customers, shareholders, employees and communities. Our sustainability framework consists of three pillars; sustainable finance, sustainable operations and beyond banking. All three pillars contribute to QNB’s goal of ensuring sustainable financial performance, through reducing risks, opening up new business opportunities and strengthening our brand.
For questions regarding sustainability at QNB, please contact us at: [email protected]