Koç Group Published Its 12th Sustainability Report. Koç Group Drives Sustainability Efforts With “Lead. Together”

Koç Group, operates with a focus on human, the world and the society, has published its 12th Sustainability Report. In pursuit of top sustainability performance, Koç Group gathers the wide-ranging group companies around a shared sustainability approach: “Lead. Together”. In a statement featured in the report, Koç Group Chairperson Ömer M. Koç points out that the world has been struggling over the last decade with the complex consequences of the growing social inequalities and the climate crisis and notes: “With the coronavirus outbreak, we have faced a bigger health crisis that needs to be tackled. At Koç Group, we are mindful of the critical role our business plays in supporting Turkey’s economic growth as well as to improving livelihoods of millions of people. We will continue to create shared value with our stakeholders and contribute to their well-being through employment, products and services and corporate citizenship.” The report includes the account of Levent Çakıroğlu, Koç Group CEO, who states that the Group is committed to increase its ESG performance, while improving the dialogue with key stakeholders to reflect their expectations on their strategies, and that the Group’s primary aim is to advance efforts in this regard and fulfil stakeholders’ expectations via “Lead. Together”, their sustainable growth approach.

Aiming to create long-term local and global value in all of its endeavors, Koç Group published its 12th Sustainability Report. Koç Group, listed in the BIST Sustainability Index since 2014, has based this report on the evolving sustainability agenda of the business world, and the “Lead. Together” approach that sets an all-encompassing framework in line with Koç Group’s global vision. The “Lead. Together” manifesto that intends to collectively address the business, people, planet and communities and to leverage collaboration in order to maximize Koç Group’s impact across all industries, while promoting good sustainability practices and progress.

Sustainability efforts at Koç Group include a stakeholder perspective. The results revealed that Koç Group, positioned as a leader and a role model in every area of responsibility, is expected to mobilize its entire ecosystem into tackling sustainability challenges. In response to this expectation, Koç Group adopted the Lead. Together approach and updates its annual sustainability report accordingly. This year’s report was no exception as 68 new environmental and social indicators were put into action across the Group.

Ömer M. Koç: “At Koç Group, we are mindful of the critical role our business plays.”

Koç Group’s 12th Sustainability Report features Chairperson Ömer M. Koç who points out the growing social inequalities across the globe and the climate crisis over the past couple of years, as well as how the pandemic revealed the importance of developing multilateral solutions together to the problems that challenge the businesses. “At Koç Group, we are mindful of the critical role our business plays in supporting Turkey’s economic growth as well as to improving livelihoods of millions

of people. We will continue to create shared value with our stakeholders and contribute to their well-being through employment, products and services and corporate citizenship” added Ömer M. Koç.

Levent Çakıroğlu: “We aim to advance our efforts and fulfil these expectations via Lead. Together, our sustainable and profitable growth approach.”

Koç Group CEO Levent Çakıroğlu stressed that the businesses that manage financial and non-financial risks together are more resilient to the current pandemic-driven crisis, as the report read: “As Koç Group, we are committed to increasing our ESG performance continuously, while improving our dialogue with key stakeholders to reflect their expectations to our strategies. We aim to advance our efforts and fulfil these expectations via Lead. Together, our sustainable growth approach.”

Koç Group’s 12th Sustainability Report announced consolidated sustainability indicators for 13 companies. The following are the highlights from the report:

·         In its rapid spread across Koç Group, the Koç Innovation Program was implemented in nine group companies in 2019. With 200 internal startups put into operation to date, the program launched 16 new products and services and established two companies. In addition, the program saw cooperation with more than 80 startups.

·         Ford Otosan Gölcük facilities and Arçelik’s washing machine plant in Romania have joined the World Economic Forum Global Lighthouse Network for state-of-the-art digital technologies.

·         Koç Group ranked 35th on Forbes World’s Best Employers 2019 list, up by a massive 59 spots.

·         2019 also saw Koç Group joining many companies that transitioned to the agile work model in various industries worldwide. The 2020 goal is to spread the pilot agile transformation projects that are already in action at Ford Otosan and Koç Finance as well as Arçelik subsidiaries WAT Motor and Token Financial Techologies, across all the Group companies. The pilot practices have shown that agile organizations can provide efficiency in finding solutions to existing issues as well as increasing customer satisfaction and employee engagement which enable them to create value.

·         In a bid to provide young people with the vocational and technical skills so as to meet the demand for an evolving workforce, Koç Group has conducted the Investing in 21st Century Skills in Vocational Training Project. The project that features the Ministry of National Education and IBM as partners, and Development Workshop as coordinator, updated the content of the vocational development class in culmination of the contributions by students, teachers and industry representatives. Moreover, Vocational Development Atelier standards were developed in order to secure the gains from the class with a physical workshop setting, followed by building a model workshop.

·         In 2019, the Guide to Gender Equality in Communications, which offers a methodology to transform the advertisement and communications language of Koç Group through gender filters, won the Sustainable Business Award for Sustainability Communications.