Sustainability in business operations and responsible action toward shareholders, customers, employees, and society have become important guiding principles of corporate policy in recent years. Regarding the role of banks as financial intermediaries and the influence on the economy this entails, banking institutions are also being called upon to help implement these policies. Postbank, as Germany’s largest retail bank, faces up to this responsibility by incorporating sustainability into our corporate actions.

For Postbank, sustainability is fundamental to attaining long-term success, both in terms of our corporate responsibility as well as our responsibility to society. This entails careful review of our own actions. We see self-assessment as a powerful tool for achieving innovation, allowing us to build on our accomplishments and to set new goals.

Postbank has already been successful in the past years with regard to sustainable action, for example being included in globally recognized sustainability indices, our adoption of environmental guidelines, and the introduction of environmentally sound banking products such as BHW’s ecological home financing loan “Öko Konstant Darlehen”. We are well aware that the path we have chosen will require unyielding effort, and we see our successes to date as further incentive to continue our endeavors to ensure corporate sustainability.

Sustainability at Postbank is embedded in the Corporate Values and the Code of Conduct of Deutsche Post World Net. The 2008 Sustainability Report published end of June 2008 by Deutsche Post World Net, which also incorporates Postbank, provides an overview of corporate sustainability within Deutsche Post World Net. Moreover, on this website we provide a summary of the various facets of sustainability that relate to banks in particular.

I encourage you to learn more about the aspects of sustainability and social responsibility that Postbank has already put into practice. And if you have any questions or suggestions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Yours sincerely,

Wolfgang Klein
Chairman of the Management Board
Deutsche Postbank AG