Environment and Community

The world needs nature to thrive.

Nature is all around us. It’s essential for our existence, good quality of life, and economic prosperity. Biodiversity, which is the variety of and interaction between all living things on earth, gives nature strength and resilience.

Human activities are causing the loss of nature. Science tells us that it’s not too late to make a difference.

Our approach to nature

One of the main causes of nature loss is climate change, which we address through our climate approach.

Our nature approach aims to address the other main drivers of nature loss, which are generally seen as habitat loss, overexploitation of natural resources, pollution and invasive species (those not native to a specific area).

We want to tackle the loss of nature by empowering our clients to contribute. We’ve identified three objectives that support this. These objectives focus on the impact we have through our loans to companies and are described below. We have also started looking ahead to the next frontier for financial institutions: steering portfolios towards nature-positive outcomes by setting relevant targets.

ING Group’s most recent Nature publication explains our ambitions, objectives, actions and methodologies in more detail.


1. Managing risks and impacts

We work with our clients to understand risks and impacts related to nature loss and ensure these are mitigated. We do this for instance by applying strict ethical and environmental criteria in our financing decisions.

We don’t finance projects with direct impacts on certain high-value ecosystems. We’ve also excluded certain economic activities that are incompatible with our concern for nature and aim to align portfolios with global climate goals. These areas and activities are elaborated in our nature and biodiversity stance and in our ESR policy framework.

We also analysed the nature-related impacts and dependencies of global industries represented in our loan book. This showed the industries where we might expect the greatest risks to nature as well as the likely opportunities. This information will guide us on where to improve our risk and opportunity-identification processes.


2. Steering our portfolio and engaging with clients

We seek to steer our loan book in alignment with global goals on nature, starting with the Wholesale Banking sectors with the biggest impact. We do this through the choices we make in our financing and the engagement we have with our clients.

In particular, the negative impact human activities have on nature is a concern we’d like to address. That’s why we aim to engage with and encourage our clients to reduce the pressures their activities put on nature, improve their management of nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities, and disclose relevant nature-related metrics. By doing so, we hope to make an active contribution to halting and ultimately reversal of nature loss.

We sometimes offer financial products that incentivise clients to make business decisions that benefit nature.


3. Promoting nature-mainstreaming internally and externally

‘Nature-mainstreaming’ is about making sure that nature and biodiversity are adequately understood, addressed and factored into relevant policies and practices, both internally and externally. We’re building these capabilities in our own organisation through several initiatives, for instance by making trainings on nature and biodiversity available to colleagues. We also aim to collaborate with external stakeholders to advance knowledge, standards and methodologies.

Looking ahead

The next frontier for financial institutions is to steer their portfolios towards nature-positive outcomes by setting relevant targets.

To explore how banks can begin to assess the feasibility of setting impact-based nature targets, ING Group has commissioned Oliver Wyman to produce a new white paper. The paper describes a possible taxonomy of nature targets, a proof of concept across two high-impact sectors, and examples of potential portfolio-level targets. We hope this white paper contributes to a dialogue on approaches that are aligned with science and frameworks such as the Global Biodiversity Framework, TNFD and the Science-Based Targets Network (SBTN).

With our approach on nature, we aim to take impactful steps to contribute to halting and reversing nature loss. The economy is in a transition, and so are our clients. We finance a lot of sustainable activities, but still finance more that’s not. We want to be there for clients – supporting and incentivising them with our advice and financing. We look forward to continuing this journey.

At the ING Group, our goal is to contribute to society’s transition to be more sustainable in line with our responsible banking approach. We are working for a society that is not only greener, but also in better financial health.

Besides the impact we create on climate action and financial health through our business activities, we focus on producing additional impact through community investment initiatives. We aim to contribute to an inclusive economy where everyone has equal opportunities to participate.

In line with this, ING Group focuses on three priority areas:

• Future-proof employment: Developing skills and finding employment. 
• Financial capabilities: Getting out of problematic debt or financial distress.
• Social enterprises: Supporting local social entrepreneurs that create innovative products and services that help people. 

At ING Türkiye, we support equal opportunities to help the sustainable development of our country and to achieve a more equal future. In line with our global strategy, we focus on creating future-proof employment as well as improving financial capabilities.

1. Financial Capabilities

Türkiye’s Saving Trends Research

As ING Türkiye, contributing to improving financial health is among our priorities. We believe that making responsible and well-informed financial decisions is a key element of taking the right steps, and we aim to support our customers and society with the right information and innovative tools.

In line with this vision, we have been raising social awareness and contributing to improved financial literacy and financial health since October 2011 with Türkiye’s Saving Trends Research, one of our community investments that examines the saving trends of individuals in urban areas. Within the research scope, we aim to determine the saving habits, changes, and the probability of saving among Türkiye's urban population.

We renewed Türkiye’s Saving Trends Research in 2024 in cooperation with NielsenIQ to provide richer, more comprehensive, and in-depth content. We have improved its methodology and content and extended its scope. Our revised research provides major insights into saving trends, while delivering data on general views on financial issues such as overall satisfaction with the financial situation, financial decisions, budget keeping, and indebtedness. In this respect, our research constitutes a valuable resource as it provides critical insights into the saving tendencies and approaches to financial issues of individuals living in urban areas in Türkiye.

Money Matters

In line with our vision of becoming Türkiye's leading savings bank, we believe that financial health plays an instrumental role in creating a sustainable world and we strive to be an organization that honors its responsibilities towards the society in which it operates. As ING Türkiye, we offer simple, understandable and reliable content that is accessible to everyone to foster financial literacy and raise awareness in the society. In the "Money Matters" videos which was launched in line with this approach, we address key issues in finance, banking and economics in a simple language and provide practical and understandable answers to the questions our viewers are faced with in their daily lives. In our financial literacy videos, we simplify basic concepts with our expert guests and help viewers act in a more informed manner in their financial decision-making processes.

2. Future-proof Employment

At ING Türkiye, we believe that it is vital to shape the workforce of the future today. We aim to contribute to creating equal opportunities in education and increase digital capabilities by implementing various projects.

Digital Teachers

We believe that education is one of the key areas that will drive Türkiye's digital transformation. Therefore, we launched the Digital Teachers project in 2020 in cooperation with the Habitat Association and Middle East Technical University. The project is centered around digitalization, which forms the backbone of our strategy, with teachers at its focus.

The workshops with teachers showed that they would most like to improve themselves in digital literacy to communicate more effectively with their students and to increase the effectiveness of education via digital tools. Since digitalization plays an essential role in ING's strategy, we aimed to transfer our know-how to them.

Our project seeks to help teachers step into the digitalized world, acquire digital literacy skills that they can use in education, transfer their skills to primary and secondary school students, and ensure that teachers from different regions have equal digital competence. Thus, we aim for teachers and students to become a part of the digital transformation and ultimately contribute to the digital transformation in Türkiye.

Since 2020, the ongoing project has included to 10,000 teachers from across Türkiye, indirectly reaching approximately 250,000 students. In 2025, the project was renewed with the aim of expanding its impact, strengthening its structure, and enriching its content. In this context, the target group was broadened to include pre-school and high school teachers, in addition to primary and secondary school teachers. The programme content was redesigned with a focus on digital intelligence, while the number of live online sessions was increased to deliver a more flexible and effective learning experience. We continue to support teachers through our up-to-date and comprehensive digital learning programme, delivered through a hybrid model that combines online and live virtual sessions.

Orange Schools

In line with our responsible banking approach, we believe that community investments that make a difference in the lives of our children are important, and we continue to provide support in line with our mission to contribute to access to better quality education.  In this regard, ING Türkiye - TEV Kindergarten, built in collaboration with the Turkish Education Foundation (TEV) in Kahramanmaraş, was opened in February 2025. In addition, under the Orange Schools initiative, we supported several public primary schools located in the provinces of Ağrı, Kahramanmaraş and Hatay through various interventions, including school renovations and the establishment of computer classrooms.

Scholarships

We aim to support creating equal opportunities in education through our scholarship funds. In line with our commitment to foster gender equality, we contribute to the education of female engineering students with the ING - TEV Equal Future Fund, established through a scholarship fund agreement signed with the Turkish Education Foundation (TEV).

Orange Hearts

As ING volunteers, we come together on the Orange Hearts platform to dedicate part of our corporate time to addressing social issues within our focus areas, particularly climate, environment and financial health. Through social responsibility initiatives, we share our time, expertise or financial resources, and ING employees who wish to volunteer under Orange Hearts can apply for announced projects or propose their own project ideas.

In this context, we organized nature and coastal clean-up activities in collaboration with the Mind Your Waste Foundation. In partnership with The Rescue House Charity, we supported our animal friends and carried out shelter visits. At the 2025 Istanbul Marathon, we ran to raise awareness and funds for the protection of green spaces together with the Turkish Foundation for Combating Soil Erosion, Reforestation and the Protection of Natural Habitats (TEMA), ranking first among participating institutions in donations raised on behalf of TEMA. In addition, through our collaboration with the Needs Map platform, we supported students under the Orange Schools initiative by providing clothing and toys.

As ING, we believe financially healthy people contribute to a healthy economy and drive social progress. That’s why we aim to stimulate customers and communities towards improved financial health behavior. We can make a difference by empowering people to stay a step ahead in their financial journey. Also, it’s one of the ways we contribute to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, particularly towards sustainable and inclusive economic growth (goal 8) and reduced inequalities (goal 10).

We aim to make an impact on improving financial health behavior by helping people manage their everyday finances and helping them plan for the future, while being an accessible bank for everyone. Through innovative digital products such as the Orange Account, we help customers better manage their everyday finances and strengthen their financial health.

In addition, we aim to contribute to increasing financial literacy with our Türkiye’s Savings Trends Research which we have been conducting since 2011 and provides data on general approach to financial matters.  Our research provides valuable insights into the saving tendencies and financial approaches of individuals living in urban areas in Türkiye, providing a valuable resource.

As ING, we continue to explore ways to measure and understand our impact. ING is working with United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) under the Principles for Responsible Banking to contribute to setting a measurement standard for financial health impact for our industry.