Edelweiss Group, one of India’s leading diversified financial services conglomerates, published its annual Sustainability Report, reaffirming its commitment to a sustainable future.
In its third edition, the report encapsulates the Group’s Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) initiatives, providing an overview of its exigent Covid-19 efforts and sustainability disclosures, benchmarked against 50 Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards. Edelweiss has voluntarily adopted the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework since 2018 and aligned its ESG efforts to 9 of the 17 SDGs.
Edelweiss has a robust diversified platform spanning Credit, Wealth & Asset Management, Asset Reconstruction and Insurance with sustainability practices adopted across all business functions.
Addressing the needs of diverse stakeholders including employees and customers, the Group is leveraging technology to further strengthen its operating structures, systems and processes to deliver on its sustainability commitment. As part of its efforts to institutionalize this process, an ESG Council has been appointed, comprising Senior Leaders, with Board level oversight, to meet the outlined goals.
Launching the Sustainability Report, Vidya Shah, Chairperson of the ESG Council at Edelweiss Group & CEO, EdelGive Foundation, said, “We are firm believers in doing business the ESG way. Sustainability principles are embedded in our business operations and we strive to have a positive impact on the communities we operate in. While the current report is an entirely organic effort put together by our ESG leaders and teams, these benchmarks reflect our resoluteness of purpose and our ambition to measure our progress, year on year. We seek to get our Sustainability Report assured by an independent external advisor in the next few years, as we remain steadfast in our ESG journey.” she added.
Large Indian conglomerates and banks have adopted global sustainability reporting practices and nearly 72% of the NIFTY constituents have issued standalone sustainability reports. Beyond Nifty 50 companies, very few companies report on sustainability based on internationally accepted frameworks like GRI. Globally, asset managers and investors are increasingly looking at ESG as an important investment parameter.
In India, asset managers have launched funds that target their investments towards companies that are compliant with ESG adoption. Edelweiss’s Asset Management entity (EAAA), India’s largest player in Private Debt (AUM of Rs. 217 billion as of FY20) has voluntarily adopted the ESG policy, anchored to Principles of Responsible Investment (PRI) and UN Global Compact’s 10 principles.
The Edelweiss Group is one of India’s leading diversified financial services companies, providing a broad range of financial products and services to a substantial and diversified client base that includes corporations, institutions and individuals. Edelweiss’ products and services span multiple asset classes and consumer segments across domestic and global geographies.
Its businesses are broadly divided into Investment & Advisory (Wealth Management, Capital Markets, Asset Management and Asset Reconstruction), Credit (Retail Credit comprising Retail Mortgage, SME and Business Loans, ESOP and Margin Financing, Agriculture & Rural Finance and Corporate Credit comprising Structured Collateralized Credit to Corporates and Wholesale Mortgages) and Insurance (Life and General Insurance).
