Sabancı Group, along with all its companies and volunteers, has been working to relieve the suffering in the earthquake region, stricken on February 6, directly impacting around 7,000 Group employees.
In addition to all people- and society-oriented efforts, Sabancı Group pioneers in the resolution of the climate emergency as part of its sustainability roadmap. Most recently, the Group committed to a significant goal that will set a new bar in the Turkish business world.
THE FIRST GROUP TO COMMIT TO SCIENCE-BASED TARGETS
Sabancı Group had previously become the first in Turkey to commit to achieving ‘Net Zero’ greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Now, the company reiterates its decisive stance on sustainability, the heart of its Group Purpose, through its recently announced intermediate targets.
Maintaining its leading position in the fight against the climate emergency, Sabancı Holding will reduce Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 42 percent by 2030 in line with the Science Based Targets initiative’s (SBTi) globally acknowledged standards.
To this end, Sabancı Group will launch numerous initiatives to promote renewable energy use, green hydrogen use, alternative fuels, and raw material substitutions and to reduce electricity leaks and losses. The Group will also cement its approach to sustainability through ’new economy’ investments.
SABANCI’S ESG SCORE CLIMBS THREE RANKS OVER THE LAST THREE YEARS
Sabancı Holding CEO Cenk Alper commented on the matter and highlighted that sustainability lies at the heart of their growth strategies: “Sustainability is the North Star that guides us as we strengthen our vision of growing the ‘Sabancı of Turkey’ into the ‘Sabancı of the World’ through international investments. Having first announced our ‘Net Zero’ by 2050 goal in early 2021, we had become the first holding in Turkey to undersign such a long-term commitment on the matter. We continued to strengthen our decisive stance with our achievements throughout 2022. We boosted our score by three ranks over the last three years in the MSCI ESG Assessment, one of the world’s leading ESG ranking institutions, and obtained an A in 2022. Sabancı Holding was also listed in the BIST 25 Sustainability Index, which includes the companies with the highest sustainability performance that are traded on BIST in 2022. Furthermore, three of the nine Turkey-based companies included in the Global A List of CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project), one of the world’s leading indices on the matter, are Sabancı Group companies.”
Cenk Alper also noted that Sabancı’s stance on sustainability is just as crucial for our nation, saying: “Therefore, we wanted to reiterate our decisiveness once again by setting new intermediate targets. We will reduce our direct carbon emissions by at least 42 percent by 2030 in coordination with the Science-Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) and will have gained substantial advantage toward our Net Zero goal. We aim to have recorded at least a 15-percent decrease by late 2025. This target binds not only the Holding, but the direct carbon emissions of the entire Group companies. In line with these targets, we take substantial steps toward digitalization and efficiency in all our business lines, all the while focusing more on the ’new economy’ that lies at the focus of our global growth strategy.”
‘NEW ECONOMY’ INVESTMENTS CONTINUE IN THE FIRST QUARTER OF 2023
Pointing out that Group companies embrace the Holding’s ’new economy’ approach as stated in their advances in 2030, Cenk Alper added: “We continue to make renewable energy investments both in Turkey and the US in our energy business line and pursue our pioneering efforts to position Turkey as Europe’s largest green hydrogen supplier. Our companies in the Industry and Construction Materials business successfully integrate cutting-edge practices in sustainability and advanced material technologies in their workflows. In addition to these, we implemented a radical organizational restructuring to promote our focus on business models building on next-generation technologies and established a Digital Group Department within the Holding.”
Additionally, Cenk Alper noted that, while expanding their main lines of business, they aspired to help raise new unicorns in Turkey: “Sabancı ARF – Almost Ready to Fly program that was launched last year graduated its first class. Of the 14 ventures included in the program, eight received seed funding and the total amount of support, in cash and in kind, distributed to all ventures during the first period of the program reached 60 million Turkish lira. The program helped early-stage ventures commercialize, while our Corporate Venture Capital Fund, Sabancı Ventures, took part in the growth journeys of high-potential companies. Our latest investment within this scope was $800,000 to SunGreenH2, a hydrogen equipment manufacturer. Established in 2020, Sabancı Ventures thus accumulated eight ventures in its portfolio, including this final venture.”
Thanks to its financial excellence approach, Sabancı Group maintained its steady balance sheets despite the national and international developments. The Group announced the financial statements for the first quarter of 2023. According to the statements, over the first quarter of 2023, Sabancı Holding boosted its combined sales by 81 percent to 131.435 billion Turkish lira, while the Holding’s net consolidated profit reached 6.087 billion Turkish lira.