Intesa Sanpaolo is aware that climate change is a challenge the Group must take up. Environmental responsibility – namely the commitment to offset climate change – is set out in the Code of Ethics and Rules on Environmental and Energy Policies, which identify the Group's responsibilities; these include the careful evaluation of the consequences of its activities on ecosystems and reducing its ecological footprint. In this framework, Intesa Sanpaolo considers the management of environmental risk and the mitigation of relative impact an integral part of its business strategy.

Analysing and understanding risks and opportunities, environmental impact and relative interdependence are fundamentally important for defining concrete environmental action plans.

In particular, the Group systematically monitors risks and opportunities related to climate change, also considering developments in the international context.

After the historical Paris Agreement in 2015, when all countries joined forces for the first time ever to tackle global warming, a UN Climate Change Conference was held in Marrakesh in 2016, to define the relative implementation plan. The agreement also has implications for Intesa Sanpaolo and its customers and business partners. The climate change conference outlined a vision for the next decades: to accelerate the process of transition towards a low-emission economy and focus on the growing role of renewable energies and green technologies, with an increasingly marginal role of fossil fuels. Intesa Sanpaolo is a financial player in this scenario, funding its own contribution towards this transition.

Besides reducing greenhouse gas emissions (mitigation), the Bank's strategy includes actions to adapt to climate change underway or that has already taken place. In recent years, extreme atmospheric events have taken place at a global level, that have had considerable impact on the Bank’s structures and on the activities and daily lives of our corporate and retail customers.

One such example is the flooding of the Po river and Sangone river in 2016 in Italy, with the flooding of offices at Moncalieri. Prevention measures made it possible to avoid damage to the Data Centre and guarantee customers service continuity throughout the emergency.

Intesa Sanpaolo also supports families and economic operators damaged by adverse weather and climate emergencies, granting specific loans with special terms (for more than 2.9 million euro) and suspending repayments on existing loans.

For the loan disbursement process, environmental risk monitoring is ensured by an evaluation based on Equator principles and review (ongoing) of the internal credit rating process (see the section Financial capital @).

In 2016, a questionnaire on suppliers' social and environmental responsibility was included in the “New Suppliers' Portal” (see the section “Social and relational capital” @).

The following table shows the main risks, impact and actions on climate change (for complete mapping, see the Intesa Sanpaolo “Carbon Disclosure Project” questionnaire [i]).