Sustainable and Responsible Finance

Since our establishment, we have been supporting the sustainable development of our country and the socio-economic development of various layers of society with sustainable financing products. We also consider following the social and environmental impacts of the projects we finance under the responsible banking approach.

Sustainable Products and Services

Sustainable products and services are one of the essential components of our sustainability approach. Our biggest impact is comprised by the way of financing in environmental and social areas. Therefore, we strive to develop products which decrease these impacts and contribute to sustainability. Minding the each part of the society, we offer products to our customers’ use in order to support the socio-economic development. This way, we both ensure the empowerment of our customers and promote social development with the support we provide for various groups including local governments, SMEs, women entrepreneurs and agricultural sector employees. Our efforts also include financing renewable energy investments.

You can access the details about the sustainable products and services through our Integrated Annual Report.

Responsible Finance

Responsible financing is at the core of our mission to contribute to our society and the environment. We see it as our responsibility to keep track of our social and environmental impact of the projects we financed and we focus on creating positive indirect impacts thanks to these projects.

The projects we finance have indirect environmental and social impacts. In this context, we added the title of Environmental and Social Impact Assessment and Sustainability to the Credit Policy Document prepared by the Credit Policies and Processes Implementation Department. Thus, we give priority to environmentally friendly projects, energy efficiency and renewable energy projects in financing.

We require Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Reports as a prerequisite for the financing we provide in order to determine the environmental impacts of all projects. Thereafter, we request the documents that the projects must provide regarding environmental standards prior to project financing. In addition to environmental criteria, we expect to be complied with various social criteria like employee and human rights, ethical values, non-child labour and non-forced labor. In addition, we do not provide financing to the sectors below under any circumstances.

  • Energy generation using nuclear fuels
  • Production or trade in weapons and land mines
  • Production or activities involving illegal forms of child labour
  • Gambling, casinos and equivalent enterprises
  • Production or trade in alcoholic beverages
  • Production or trade in tobacco
  • Illegal fishing

You can reach the list of all activities that are not to be financed by VakıfBank through Environmental and Social Impacts Management Policy in Lending Processes.

We cooperate with international financial institutions such as World Bank, French Development Agency (Agence Française de Développement - AFD), European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), European Investment Bank (EIB) and German Development Bank (Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau - KfW) within the scope of many projects. Many projects we finance in cooperation with these organizations require meeting high ethical, environmental and social standards.

In 2020, according to the agreement we made within the scope of the fund we also provided from the French Development Agency, the studies aimed at establishing an Environmental and Social Risk Management System in the loan allocation processes were completed and the Environmental and Social Risk Management System, which will be applied for Project Finance loans of USD 20 million and above in the first place, was put into use as of December 2022.