Themen:
Media Release December 7, 2020

Deutsche Bank plans to link compensation to sustainability criteria

  • Sustainability becoming a growth driver in all business areas
  • Annual targets now defined and the bank is confident of outperforming the target for 2020
  • Committee chaired by CEO Christian Sewing formed in addition to the Sustainability Council
  • Sustainability Investor Deep Dive following the publication of the Non-Financial Report in spring


Deutsche Bank (XETRA: DBKGn.DB / NYSE: DB) has announced annual growth targets for sustainable business activities covering the ESG (environmental, social, governance) space and plans to link them to management compensation from 2021. The volume of sustainable financing and client investments is set to reach more than 20 billion euros in the current year and to rise gradually to the total announced in May of more than 200 billion euros by 2025. The bank is confident of comfortably reaching the target for 2020.

“It is our ambition to be a leader on sustainability in the financial sector, and contribute to an environmentally sound, socially inclusive and well-governed world”, said CEO Christian Sewing. “We see a great opportunity for us to transform ourselves as well as to support our clients in their transformation towards greater sustainability.”

The Supervisory Board and the Management Board are reinforcing this ambition by planning to tie the compensation of its top-level executives to sustainability criteria from next year onwards. The decisive criteria are to include the annual target volume for sustainable finance and ESG investments as well as a sustainability ratings index comprising five leading ratings agencies. Management performance is also to be assessed according to whether, in the coming year, the bank reduces its power consumption in its buildings by 10 percent versus 2019. The bank plans to use 100 percent renewable sources of energy by 2025.

Another important step towards implementing the strategy is the new Sustainability Committee of the Management Board, which Christian Sewing chairs. It began its work in October and is the bank’s highest level decision-making committee with respect to sustainability. Besides Sewing there are 13 other members on the committee, including Management Board members and the heads of the four corporate divisions.

The Sustainability Council set up by the bank in 2018 remains an important governance body. It will continue its cross-divisional activities of devising proposals and doing preparatory work for the Sustainability Committee’s decision-making.

The bank is also breaking new ground in its sustainability communications with capital market participants: following the publication of its Non-Financial Report on March 12, 2021 it will conduct its very first Sustainability Investor Deep Dive. The event will be dedicated to providing details of the bank’s strategic and operating progress in the environmental, social and governance space.

 

For further information please contact:

Deutsche Bank AG, Media Relations

Sebastian Krämer-Bach
Phone: +49 69 910-43330
Email: sebastian.kraemer-bach@db.com 

Tim Oliver Ambrosius
Phone: +49 173 653 13 26
Email: tim-oliver.ambrosius@db.com 

Charlie Olivier
Phone: +44(207)54-57866
Email: charlie.olivier@db.com 

About Deutsche Bank

Deutsche Bank provides retail and private banking, corporate and transaction banking, lending, asset and wealth management products and services as well as focused investment banking to private individuals, small and medium-sized companies, corporations, governments and institutional investors. Deutsche Bank is the leading bank in Germany with strong European roots and a global network.

 

Disclaimer:

This release contains forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts; they include statements about our beliefs and expectations and the assumptions underlying them. These statements are based on plans, estimates and projections as they are currently available to the management of Deutsche Bank. Forward-looking statements therefore speak only as of the date they are made, and we undertake no obligation to update publicly any of them in light of new information or future events.

By their very nature, forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties. A number of important factors could therefore cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement.

Such factors include the conditions in the financial markets in Germany, in Europe, in the United States and elsewhere from which we derive a substantial portion of our revenues and in which we hold a substantial portion of our assets, the development of asset prices and market volatility, potential defaults of borrowers or trading counterparties, the implementation of our strategic initiatives, the reliability of our risk management policies, procedures and methods, and other risks referenced in our filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Such factors are described in detail in our SEC Form 20-F of 20 March 2020 under the heading “Risk Factors”. Copies of this document are readily available upon request or can be downloaded from www.db.com/ir. 

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