Commerzbank Sustainability Advisory Board
For a constructive and critical view from the outside
Constructive dialogue with experts
In 2022, we established an external Sustainability Advisory Board under the patronage of the CEO. In this way, we want to ensure a constructive and critical dialogue with our stakeholders. The advisory board is composed of five experts from the fields of politics, science, society, NGOs and small and medium-sized enterprises. They represent a broad range of expertise. This covers topics such as the circular economy and biodiversity, which are gaining in importance for us. The Sustainability Advisory Board provides impulses for the further development and implementation of our sustainability strategy.
By introducing the advisory board we have expanded our governance structure.
Manager and Author , Ana-Cristina Grohnert
The studied business manager can look back on many years of banking and industry experience in financial and risk management. In particular, she took the view of the business and human resources manager and accompanied companies in their transformation. Among other things, she was Chief Human Resources Officer at Allianz Deutschland AG. Previously, she realigned the HR strategy at Ernst & Young. From 2013 until 2023 she has been chairwoman of the executive board of the employers' initiative Charter of Diversity and is committed to greater sustainability, diversity and appreciation in the economy.
Today, companies can only be future-proof if they understand themselves as part of an ecosystem and offer relevant added value to all their stakeholders. Growth is only possible if the entire ecosystem grows concurrently, not against the interests of the ecosystem.
Co-Managing Director and Co-Founder of Cradle to Cradle NGO, Tim Janßen
In 2012 Tim Janßen founded the non-governmental organization "Cradle to Cradle NGO" and has since headed it as Co-Managing Director. With more than ten years of expertise, the economist is a sought-after interlocutor at political roundtables and economic congresses for the transformation of our economy into a closed-loop economy. Cradle to Cradle NGO networks business, science, education, politics and civil society, and drives the Cradle to Cradle concept, according to which all resources circulate in technical or biological cycles and can become a nutrient for new products.
The financial sector can be a driver of the urgently needed transformation of our linear economy into a circular economy, because we need innovative circular business models and appropriate financing.
Co-Managing Director of the Green and Sustainable Finance Cluster Germany, Kristina Jeromin
After studying philosophy and political science, Kristina Jeromin worked at Deutsche Börse Group from 2009 to 2020 and was initially responsible for internal and external communication of sustainability issues. As Head of Group Sustainability, she was responsible for the group-wide sustainability management of Deutsche Börse from 2015 on. Kristina Jeromin has also been Managing Director of the Green and Sustainable Finance Cluster Germany since 2018. She was a member of the sustainable Finance Advisory Board of the last German Federal Government and its deputy chairwoman from 2019 to 2021. She is also a member of the German Society of the Club of Rome.
The financial sector has an important role to play in the development and expansion of resilient and sustainable economic structures. The extent to which an industry succeeds in fulfilling this role has enormous consequences for its own competitiveness and future viability.
Managing Director Marketing of Hassia Group, Stefan Müller
Stefan Müller studied business administration and has been working for the Hassia Group as Managing Director of Marketing and Corporate Development since 2016. Hassia Group is a longstanding customer of Commerzbank and is strongly committed to the topic of sustainability, which is located in their marketing department. As a provider of a wide range of regional mineral waters and natural soft drinks such as Bionade, sustainability is of particular importance at Hassia. The company attaches great importance to the sustainable orientation of all business areas and thus to combine responsible consumption and entrepreneurial behaviour.
As a family business, we do not think in quarters, but in generations. Therefore, sustainable management has always been part of our DNA. Everything we do, we think to the end and take responsibility for our actions.
Environmental scientist, Prof. Dr. Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker
As a graduate physicist and a PhD biologist, Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker has been concerned with climate change for a long time. His commitment is particularly focused on climate protection and climate justice. As founding president of the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment, Energy, former Co-President of the "Club of Rome", former member of the Bundestag (there chairman of the environmental committee) and Head of the Californian Environmental College, he has long been one of the most relevant German thought leaders in climate protection. He is in a lively exchange with the new generation of climate activists, thus combining decades of science with current efforts to improve climate protection and justice.
Financial firms are like “adjusting screws”, also in terms of sustainability.