Sustainability

Dear Customers, Partners, Shareholders, Employees and other Stakeholders

Ensuring sustainability remains an important part of our strategy. In 2021, we took additional measures to foster sustainability and responsible behaviour throughout the organisation, and details of that work are provided in this report. We are proud that we were able to make considerable progress, and that we initiated further improvements.

Despite the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting economic downturn, and thanks to our cautious, long-term risk management approach, our overall loss performance remained robust. Last year, there was no significant rise in the number of customers in financial difficulty, and we provided appropriate, tailored solutions to customers who were unable to meet their contractual repayment obligations as a result of the pandemic.

Cembra is one of the leaders in electromobility financing in Switzerland. We offer loans and leases for electric vehicles on highly favourable terms. Our strategy is to continue to grow this business in line with the market trend.

Our Risk Management Report now includes a chapter on climate-related risk. Physical climate risks are generally considered to be limited to specific activities, as we are a financial services provider operating exclusively in Switzerland. Climate-related transition risks could gradually materialise in the form of credit risk, resulting in our leased assets losing value over the medium to long term. We describe how we mitigate these risks in our Risk Management Report.

The Sustainability Committee, which is chaired by the CEO, held five meetings in 2021, in which it oversaw ongoing sustainability initiatives and projects. In addition, the Committee defined strategy-related sustainability targets as part of the updated strategy disclosed on our Investor Day in December. These targets are based on our commitments and are designed to drive further improvements. Sustainability targets have been part of the criteria for determining the Management Board’s incentive-based compensation since 2020. To the extent decisions are not reserved to the Board of Directors, it provides oversight, assisted by the Audit and Risk Committee.

We have gone further one more step this year by seeking external assurance on the most material topics in this Sustainability Report. We are among the first smaller listed companies in Switzerland with such an external review.

Our increasing efforts to promote sustainability were acknowledged by leading ESG rating agencies. We are also very pleased that Cembra is included in the SXI Switzerland Sustainability 25 Index and is again one of only nine Swiss-based companies to join the Bloomberg Gender Equality Index in 2022. The Great Place to Work organisation named us as one of the "Best Workplaces Switzerland" and as one of "Europe's Best Workplaces".

Your feedback matters to us, and we would like to continue our dialogue with you on sustainability and on our performance in this area. Please do not hesitate to get in touch with us.