Sustainability program

OmaSp's sustainability programme is based on our values, Code of Conduct, stakeholder expectations and megatrends in the operating environment. Satisfied customers are at the heart of our strategy. Our goal is to achieve the highest level of customer satisfaction in the sector by being present in our customers’ lives. A key to success is the mindset of our enterprising and motivated personnel.

OmaSp is Finnish and Finland’s largest Savings Bank. Our history in banking goes back 148 years. We are strongly committed to our customers, personnel and operating environment, contributing to building an economically, socially and environmentally sustainable society.

We actively promote and develop the vitality of local and regional communities by offering jobs outside urban areas and by financing local private and corporate customers. We support a local community spirit and well-being at our branch locations and the surrounding areas by organising events or participating in local events. 

Our personnel is our most important resource, which is why we want to take care of our employees’ satisfaction and physical and mental well-being. Thriving personnel and satisfied customers lay the foundation for our bank’s progress and success.

A significant part of OmaSp’s profit is put back into communities near our customers and for purposes of general interest through the OmaSp foundations and co-operatives that support the well-being, economy and vitality of their catchment areas. They annually distribute grants and subsidies that support, for example, economic education, research, children’s sports, youth work, culture and nature conservation.

In the sales of products and services, sustainability shows in taking responsibility for the customer’s financial well-being. We do this by, for example, focusing on granting secured loans to solvent clients, providing tips on prospering or taking care of maintaining a client’s solvency in the event of unemployment or illness through loan insurance. 

Our choices of marketing and trade fair products have been geared towards the use of recycled materials or biomaterials for several years. In 2020, we switched over to green electricity in our office premises. Since the majority of our carbon footprint emissions stem from purchased services, we have set sustainability requirements for our partners.

We promote the well-being and financial literacy of children and adolescents through our involvement in various programmes that teach financial literacy, such as the Oma Onni online learning environment for developing young people’s financial literacy or TAT’s Yrityskylä learning environment on working life, the economy and society aimed at primary school students.

OmaSp reports on its sustainability and monitores performance against the targets set for the identified sustainability themes through an annual sustainability report. OmaSp also supports all of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. Five of these goals – the ones with the most material impact – have been incorporated into our daily management, strategy and operations. 

Our updated sustainability programme and report have been prepared in accordance with the principles of the GRI standards. The standards allow us to create consistent principles for how we disclose our material impacts on people, the environment and the economy. In this way, we wish to increase the transparency of our sustainability reporting. Our goal has been to focus on what is essential and we hope the clear structure makes the report easier to read. With our updated sustainability programme, we aim to deepen and advance our sustainability efforts to proactively meet ever-tightening requirements.

To bring more clarity to our sustainability efforts, we have divided the sustainability aspects into three themes that form the essence of our sustainability efforts now and in the future:

• We are local and close to people
• We promote collective well-being
• We contribute to sustainable development

Based on these themes, we have prepared a roadmap outlining the goals of our sustainability efforts for the coming years. We monitor the implementation of the roadmap annually through the sustainability report. As part of updating our sustainability programme, we have identified ten sustainability aspects that are material to us in the short term and which form the basis for our sustainability efforts. Although all aspects are important for our work, we have concluded that we must pay particular attention to the following three:

• Supporting customers in personal finance management and development
• Financing sustainable projects and offering sustainable investment products
• Assessing the climate-related risks of investment activities and portfolios

We will increase our personnel’s sustainability competence through training, among other means, and adopt a 100 per cent recyclable material for our bank cards. We will also look into different approaches to promote climate action and prepare a carbon neutrality roadmap outlining a specific carbon neutrality goal for us, as well as measures for reaching that goal. 

For us at OmaSp, sustainability is, more than anything, about delivering on our promises every day through concrete actions.