World's Most Socially Responsible Banks 2022

LICENSING INFORMATION
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METHODOLOGY
The "World's Most Socially Responsible Banks" focuses on the three dimensions of Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG). The ranking focuses on a holistic view of corporate responsibility that considers all three pillars of ESG. In total, 175 banks have been identified as the "World's Most Socially Responsible Banks."
The analysis is based on two metrics:
▸ Objective data from key perfor-mance indicator (KpI) research (about 30 KpIs from the three pillars of ESG) including KpIs specific to the banking sector.
▸ ESG reputation of a bank from an extensive consumer survey.The approach does not focus on sustainable investments and social banking.

The analysis follows a 6-step process to create the ranking:
1- Identification of relevant banks
2- Surveying about 45,000 participants on their opinion of banks on social responsibility
3- Collecting of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reports and financial reports of relevant banks
4- Research of KPIs that represent important aspects of a bank's ESG performance using an online access panel. The survey was conducted between November 2021 and January 2022.

Consumers were surveyed on their perception of banks CSR-activities within the country they live in. Structural differences in the response behavior of respondents from different countries were harmonized.

SURVEY STRUCTURE
1- Selection of banks that the respondent is familiar with in their respective country.
2- Surveying participants perception of the banks general engagement in the area of corporate social responsibility as well as specific aspects of ESG.


CSR REPORTS
Research was conducted to identify which of the banks published a CSR report or something similar. Only banks that published such a report could be considered for the research of KPIs. The researched reports must include ESG data for 2020 to ensure comparability.

Research of KPIs: About 30 KPIs across the three areas of ESG were researched per bank. The KPIs were defined so that they could be applied and compared across banks regardless of headquarters or size.

The ESG data was researched mainly from CSR reports or similar as well as other public sources (e.g., CDP, Science based targets initiative). For financial metrics, data was collected from financial reports and the banker Database. In addition to the research, an email was sent to all banks in scope to give them the opportunity to validate the researched KPIs.

Researched data is either binary or numerical. In all cases where banks could not provide data in a field that is researched and relevant for ESG, they were scored 0 for the relevant KPIs (non-disclosure or non-activity failure). For a complete list of the KPIs researched for each bank in the three pillars of ESG, go to www.newsweek.com/msrb-2023.


WEB MONITORING
For each bank that was to be awarded, a detailed check for scandals was carried out. Banks that had recently been involved in large ESG-relevant scandals or legal proceedings were excluded from the analysis.
In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the accompanying sanctions, all banks doing new business in Russia were excluded from the ranking. The public announcement of the banks as well as a list from the Yale School of management (www.yalerussianbusinessretreat.com) were considered in the selection. However, without explicit information on this issue, the banks under consideration could not be excluded from the ranking. Respectively, this screening was performed only on the basis of publicly available and verified information.


SCORING
For every bank with a CSR report, a score was calculated based on KPI performance and the consumer survey. Each pillar of ESG accounts for one third of the final score. In each of the three pillars a score of 100 (for the best performing bank) could be achieved. Within each pillar of ESG the result of the KPI research was weighted 70 percent and the survey result was weighted 30 percent.
The 175 banks with the highest overall score were awarded as the "World's most Socially responsible Banks." The ranking represents banks from 33 countries.


The selection of the banks and the definition of the evaluation criteria were carried out according to independent journalistic criteria of Newsweek and Statista. The evaluation was carried out by the statistics and market research company Statista. Newsweek and Statista make no claim to the completeness of the banks examined.

The ranking is composed exclusively of banks eligible regarding the scope described here. A mention in the ranking is a positive recognition based on research of publicly available data sources and an extensive consumer survey. The ranking is the result of an elaborate process which, due to the interval of data-collection and analysis, is a reflection of official ESG data from 2020. Furthermore, events following July 18, 2022 were not the subject of this survey. As such, the results of this ranking should not be used as the sole source of information for future deliberations. The information provided in this ranking should be considered in conjunction with other available information on sustainability. The quality of companies that are not included in the ranking is not disputed.


You can download the full methodology here.