Making Sustainability Tangible with Numbers

“I have always had an affinity for numbers and am analytically inclined. That's why I studied Business Economics, a broad degree that allows you to go in just about any direction. After I graduated, I started at Rabobank in the Finance department in Utrecht.”

Currently, Sana works as a Program Manager in the CFO Sustainability team. “I analyse financial data with an extra focus on sustainability. How are we doing now? Which direction are we heading? Our insights help management and the business make strategic decisions in the various sustainability transitions Rabobank is committed to, such as the energy transition and the food transition.”

Try something different: Highly recommended for every career

After working as a Business Controller for several years, Sana worked as a Business Manager and then moved towards portfolio management. “It was a learning experience. Because you work directly with customers, you get a clear picture of how we as a bank generate our income. These are valuable insights, and as a Business Controller you are a bit further away from that. I can recommend taking such a step in your career to everyone.”

“Rabobank is a large, diverse organization and you can specialize in basically whatever you’d like. There are a lot of possibilities within the bank. You have to find your own opportunities, and you get a lot of support. My manager encourages me to keep developing and to step out of my comfort zone.”

Eventually, Sana went back to a role within Control. “I missed the strategic part of the work, about what the bank is doing, which way are we going, what is happening in terms of sustainability? Providing insight into all that with figures is what I like doing best.”

Making sustainability tangible

In 2019, Rabobank and 50 other financial institutions signed the Dutch Climate Agreement. Moreover, the bank is committed to the Paris climate goals. Rabobank links sustainable business goals to loans, such as reducing carbon emissions in line with the Paris Climate Agreement. In the publication Our Road to Paris, Rabobank describes the steps it will take up to 2050 for a better climate and commits to integrating sustainability into everything it does.

Sana: “To meet those climate goals, in addition to helping our customers become more sustainable, we need to take steps ourselves. Sustainability is not an isolated issue, it plays a role in everything we do. When issuing a loan, for instance, we no longer consider only risk and return, but also how it fits within the sustainability transition. Sustainability has become an integral part of our operations and strategy.”

“My team looks at Rabobank's entire portfolio, from our international Wholesale & Rural (W&R) clients, to our business clients in the Netherlands, and our mortgage portfolio too, of course. That makes the work very diverse. You are always dealing with content, delving into regulations on sustainability, current developments and innovations, and analyzing how these things impact the bank's goals. It’s essential to have the right figures since they enable you to put things into perspective. Making the impact of sustainability clear to people is what gets them moving.”

Socially engaged

“The bank's mission is also my mission. Social issues are important to me. It's just something you do, I believe. I am Dutch-Moroccan, and from an early age I was taught that you have to be there for other people. I help people in my environment with their finances and administration. I also really like cooking and eating meals with other people. I enjoy bringing people together. By opening a door you get closer to each other.”

“Helping other people comes naturally to me, it's in my DNA. I am well aware that not everyone gets the same opportunities because, for example, they grew up in a different neighborhood or don't speak the language well. My work also helps with this. Organizing and supporting or coaching people are skills I also use in my daily work.”

“To be honest, I thought I would work at Rabobank for a year or two and then go somewhere else, but before I knew it, I’d been working there for almost 18 years,” laughed Sana. “That's because I truly believe in what Rabobank stands for. Making the world a better place together is not an empty promise. The bank is incredibly diverse, it employs people of all sorts of backgrounds, and it is socially engaged. For example, take the recent earthquakes in Turkey and Morocco: Rabobank is doing something about it. A colleague of ours set up an in-house collection, and Rabobank doubled every euro that came in. That moves me, that’s real social commitment.”