SpareBank 1 Ostlandet : Sustainability strategy

SUSTAINABILITY STRATEGY

2022-2025

Sustainability strategy 2022-2025

Contents

1.	INTRODUCTION	3
1.1	PURPOSE AND ORGANISATION	3
1.2	CENTRAL GUIDELINES AND FRAMEWORKS	3
1.3	DEFINITIONS AND TERMS	5

2.	STRATEGIC TARGETS	6
2.1	2050 TARGET	6
2.2	2030 TARGET	6
2.3	2025 TARGET	7

3.	CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS	8
3.1	OVERALL KPI	8
3.2	MATERIAL SUSTAINABILITY TOPICS	9
3.3	STRATEGIC PRIORITY AREAS	11
4.	RISK ASSESSMENT	13
5.	EVALUATION AND FOLLOW-UP	13
6.	REFERENCES AND LINKS	16

Owner	Sustainability Committee/Head of Sustainability
Written by	Sustainability Committee
Established by	Board of Directors
Access	Internal and external
Status	Adopted by the Board of Directors
Version	3
Created	30.05.2017
Last amended	23.08.2022
Number of	15
pages

Page: 2 of 16

SpareBank 1 Østlandet's sustainable development goals -

illustration

Sustainability strategy 2022-2025

1. INTRODUCTION

SpareBank 1 Østlandet aims to use the Group's combined knowledge and resources to contribute to sustainable development in economic, social and environmental terms. The strategy is based on international frameworks and our overall policies and guidelines for sustainability. It is intended to form the basis of our strategic decisions and day-to-day work. The strategy should be viewed in conjunction with other internal governing documents.

SpareBank 1 Østlandet is primarily a regional player with business operations in central Eastern Norway. As a result, the Bank's primary focus is on sustainability, growth and development in the local communities of which it is part. At the same time, the Bank recognises that the transition we are facing requires it to take global considerations into account in all of its operations. The Bank should act responsibly, and in line with its own and internationally recognised principles of social responsibility and sustainability.

Sustainability work is largely about avoiding risk, because the Bank can have a negative impact on society, the environment, nature and people, but also because future changes will have a negative impact on the Bank. But the Bank also wants to highlight the business opportunities inherent in the sustainable transformation. The Bank aims to look for opportunities that have a significant positive sustainability effect (including substantial reductions in negative effects), contribute to reducing the Bank's sustainability risk and also have significant business potential.

1.1 Purpose and organisation

The purpose of this strategy is to show the strategic direction for the sustainability work in SpareBank 1 Østlandet. The strategy for sustainability and corporate social responsibility is determined by the Group Board of Directors. This strategy is built on and revised in line with the overall Group strategy. The strategy is incorporated into the relevant strategic governing documents.

The responsibility for delivering on the targets is delegated to the relevant executive vice presidents, and quarterly reports are sent to Group Management following the normal reporting lines in the Bank. The Bank has a Sustainability Committee which monitors our overall efforts on sustainability and acts as an advisory body to Group Management. The Committee is made up of representatives from twelve different departments. All those on the Committee have strategically important roles in the sustainability work; for example, the Credit Manager for the corporate market, the Chief Compliance Officer, the head of Corporate Governance, the head of Products and Solutions, the Marketing Manager and the head of Capital Markets are all represented. The Committee is chaired by the Bank's Head of Sustainability and holds monthly meetings.

1.2 Central guidelines and frameworks

UN Sustainable Development Goals

The Bank's sustainability work delivers on several of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals1. As a bank, we have an impact on most of the SDGs, but we have identified the goals on which the business has a particularly large impact (positive or negative). These are SDG 4 on quality education, SDG 8 on decent work and economic growth, SDG 9 on industry, innovation and infrastructure, SDG 12 on responsible consumption and production, SDG 13 on climate action, SDG 15 on life on land and SDG 16 on peace, justice and strong institutions (which aims at combatting economic crime) (see figure). Some are internal goals, which the Bank itself can work to attain. To meet the external goals, the Bank needs to cooperate with customers and society in general, using the resources in its possession. Some goals are both internal and external; these are goals 4, 8, 9, 13 and 16.

Along with these seven goals, SDG 17 is also central to our work, because we place great emphasis on cooperation to achieve the

goals. In the figure on the right, SDG 17 is therefore shown as a circle enclosing the other goals.

Page: 3 of 16

Sustainability strategy 2022-2025

UN Global Compact

SpareBank 1 Østlandet is affiliated to the UN Global Compact2, the world's largest initiative for corporate social responsibility, . The Bank's Head of Sustainability was deputy chair of the Board when the Norwegian network was established. Through our membership of the Global Compact, we commit ourselves to working for ten principles under four headings: Human Rights, Labour, Environment and Anti-Corruption. Through our reporting on these principles, SpareBank 1 Østlandet is rated "GC advanced", which means that the Bank has the best standard for addressing several of the four areas. This includes implementing the principles in the Global Compact into our strategy and business development, our active use and support of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and strategic management based on the SDGs. All of our reports are displayed on the Global Compact website.3

UNEP FI - Principles for Responsible Banking The United Nations Environment Programme has developed a Finance Initiative (UNEP FI)

for accountability in banking and finance4. SpareBank 1 Østlandet was the first Norwegian bank to sign up to the principles. We apply their six principles actively in our work, and cooperate through UNEP FI with other banks on a sustainable financial industry worldwide. We have carried out UNEP FI's impact analysis to find the areas where the Bank has the greatest positive and negative

impact. The results are actively used in our sustainability work. The analysis was last updated in autumn 2021. It shows that there are two sustainability areas that stand out, resource utilisation and climate. These are reflected in goals set by the Bank in the sustainability area in the current strategy period.5

UNEP FI Collective Commitment to Climate Action - CCCATo

provide for effective quality assurance in our climate work, we signed the UN Environment Programme's climate commitments for banks in 2019. The commitments include setting concrete and time-specific targets to align the loan portfolio with the Paris Agreement. The Bank shows how we are delivering on our commitments through annual reports.6 Some of the work has now been transferred to the initiative below, the Net Zero Banking Alliance.

UNEP FI Net-Zero Banking Alliance - NZBA

This is the UN Environment Programme's net-zero initiative, launched in April 2021. The Bank was one of the first in the world to join the climate initiative. We did this in order to accelerate the work towards climate neutrality by 2050. We participate actively in several working groups to develop methods and guidelines in our work on climate neutrality, and report on our commitments.7

OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises

The guidelines are recommendations from the OECD countries for business and industry in all sectors, including financial services8. They are in line with other guidelines for responsible business, such as the UN Global Compact and the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights (UNGP). SpareBank 1 Østlandet works to comply with the guidelines and actively applies the new due diligence guidelines from the OECD in this work.

Greenwashing decree

The decree sets out principles and guidelines for ethical marketing and communication that are intended to prevent misleading marketing or greenwashing. Greenwashing occurs when companies promote goods or services as green or sustainable without any adequate basis for claiming this. We support the content of

Page: 4 of 16

Sustainability strategy 2022-2025

the greenwashing decree and do our utmost to comply with the principles in our marketing and communications.

On the basis of the frameworks mentioned above, SpareBank 1 Østlandet has drawn up general policies and guidelines for our operations, which set out the direction and approach for our sustainability work. The guidelines are split into 'environment and climate', 'social conditions' and 'governance and control'. The complete overview can be found on our website.9

1.3 Definitions and terms

• Sustainable development is defined as "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (Brundtland Commission,
  1987).
• By "sustainability" we mean environment, nature and climate (E), social conditions and labour and human rights (S), and economic crime and governance (G).
• We talk about "the planet's tolerance limits" because we work with a research-based concept of sustainability. This means that we use research on the planet's tolerance limits as a scientific basis for our sustainability work, combined with research on the social foundation.10
• By "zero-emission society", we mean a society that meets the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees, which was strengthened at the climate summit in Glasgow in 2021 to below 1.5 degrees compared to pre-industrial times.

Page: 5 of 16