Sustainability: It’s not enough to have a bit of a strategy

“Business as usual is over!” This statement made by PricewaterhouseCoopers’ executive spokesperson Petra Justenhoven to the audience was clear. She gave the opening address at the Impact Festival 2024 at the Messe Frankfurt exhibition centre. The two-day conference was organised by Commerzbank subsidiary neosfer for the fourth time and attracted around 4,500 visitors.

The conference brought together people from the worlds of business, politics and civil society and featured topics related to sustainable innovation and solutions, including presentations and discussions. The conference, which took place at the end of October, welcomed companies and investors committed to a sustainable economy to Frankfurt. The Impact Festival network is now Europe’s largest B2B community for sustainable transformation.

Christiane Vorspel, Chief Operating Officer at Commerzbank, spoke at the plenum about what banks can do to create more sustainability. Firstly, they can start in-house, by creating sustainable processes, creating sustainable management, expanding the bank’s portfolio with more sustainable investment options, and appealing to business partners. In short: Do your homework! This not only makes you more credible: it is also a strategic commitment. After all, “a bit of a strategy only amounts to a bit of success”, as Justenhoven noted in her opening address.

The Bank as a transformation coach

Vorspel is convinced that blockchains and artificial intelligence will provide valuable support in transforming processes. “It makes sense to use these tools, but they also use a huge amount of energy.” They are primarily required to collect, document and analyse comparable variables. Commerzbank records around 800 factors when defining a company’s key performance indicators (KPIs), for example. For the Bank, making the German companies fit for this essential transformation is a task that is inherent to its work. “Large companies tend to have the resources for this”, Vorspel said. The smaller a company is, the more they require external support. This is where the Bank comes in as a partner. And this goes far beyond financing and includes reporting, achieving objectives and providing tailored consultancy – all with a focus on sustainable transformation. “This is no longer a question of ‘wanting to’”, Vorspel clarifies: companies will only survive if they are actively moving towards a sustainable business model.

It was also clear from the round table discussions that there is no other way, not least because of regulatory requirements. The Bank’s Global Lead Sustainable Finance in the Corporate Clients Segment, Bülent Karakaya, represented Commerzbank in these discussions, providing a coherent overview of the current status quo together with a start-up company, the sustainability representative from Deutsche Bank and a member of the German parliament from the political party The Greens. Transforming the economy and society is like climbing a steep mountain: it is challenging, takes a lot of effort, and costs a lot of money. Down in the valley, there are those who want to see whether it is even possible for someone to climb the mountain. Or those at the foot of the mountain who would rather stick with the structures that they have established and trust. However, these people remain behind and will be overtaken by developments in society and on the market.

A long tradition of sustainable financing

Karakaya looks back at how Commerzbank provided targeted support in wind power financing in as far back as the 1990s with its Center of Competence. Now, there is a long-distance run towards a sustainable economy. A long-distance run at a sprinting pace. “At Commerzbank, we don’t want to break off from those who can’t keep pace, but rather we want to enable them to manage and finance the changes.”

A direction that is catching on with investors and businesspeople. Commerzbank’s information stand at the Impact Festival was popular and places at its workshops were fully booked. At these, the Bank provided specific examples of how it is providing support through the transformation and how it is worthwhile. To sum up, there are more and more sustainable success stories – the Impact Festival 2025 is sure to feature many more.