Being a responsible business is important to us. Our Sustainability and Responsible Banking (SRB) strategy sets out our goals to help people and businesses. The strategy also covers our most important sustainability issues, which can be put into 3 pillars: environment, social and governance.
Using these pillars, we have set out 3 clear aims:
- contribute towards group ambitions to be net zero carbon by 2050, and meet regulatory requirements
- support product inclusive growth across our key stakeholder groups: customers, communities and our people
- be responsible in everything we do, with ethics and integrity being a solid foundations of our SRB strategy
Our partners are important to us, so we want to make sure our values are the same with all our suppliers.
For more information about our sustainability strategy, please see our 'helpful links’.
Our Santander Supplier Code of Conduct explains what we expect from suppliers, including responsible business practices, care for the environment, and social responsibility.
We also ask suppliers to register with EcoVadis, an ESG assessment tool. In some cases, we may be a requirement for doing business with us.
To access our Code of Supplier Responsibility, please see 'Helpful links’.
Our Code of Supplier Responsibility asks all suppliers to have a credible ESG scorecard from a reputable third party. We use EcoVadis as our ESG assessment tool.
Suppliers will have to sign up to EcoVadis to complete a questionnaire about their business. This includes policies and metrics. When the questionnaire is looked over by EcoVadis experts, a scorecard will be created. The scorecard is split into 4 categories: human and labour rights, environment, ethics, and sustainable procurement. Suppliers will then be able to share the scorecard with us.
EcoVadis charges a fee based on the size of the company and the plan selected. This should be fully covered by the supplier. Details can be found in the 'Helpful links'.
We expect all suppliers to take part in a reassessment annually, using EcoVadis. This includes updated metrics (metrics of primary importance include GHG emissions).
See 'Useful links' to go to EcoVadis now.
If you have any further questions, please contact your Supplier Collaboration Partner or Service Manager.