For us at Deutsche Börse Group, diversity has many faces – whether age & experience, gender, (dis-)abilities, sexual orientation & identity or ethnicity & beliefs. ​We believe in creating a workplace where everyone feels welcome and accepted and we find strengths and added value in diverse talents and commitment, and we enjoy how individual traits enrich our corporate culture.

Our employees’ commitment and performance are the most important components of Deutsche Börse Group’s success. They master challenging tasks and create a corporate culture characterised by responsibility, commitment, flexibility and the determination to achieve something extraordinary. We want to make sure that prospective employees with these qualities are and remain attracted to Deutsche Börse Group. Therefore, we strive to find and support highly talented individuals and seek their long-term commitment to the company. To this end, we pursue a responsible, sustainable personnel policy. This benefits both employees as well as the company.

Deutsche Börse is a service provider that makes exacting demands on its staff: their technical skills, their ability to communicate and work in teams, and their readiness to take responsibility. At Deutsche Börse, experts with highly specialised knowledge work hand-in-hand with generalists, who tailor the products and services to the requirements of customers, owners and representatives of the public interest.

Ethical business conduct is deeply rooted in our business principles and values. Our commitment to market integrity, transparency, efficiency and safety is at the core of our operations, and we aim to prevent unlawful or unethical conduct in any business relationship. Our principles, values and practices are expressed in our sustainability statements, guidelines and policies.

You can find all our statements, guidelines and policies here.

Procurement: sustainability in the supply chain

The aim of our supplier management within Corporate Purchasing at Deutsche Börse Group is to ensure compliance with basic ethical, environmental and social standards.

In line with our sustainability strategy, the Code of Conduct is obligatory for suppliers that are managed by Corporate Purchasing. By default, all new suppliers must sign the Code of Conduct of Deutsche Börse Group or, in exceptional cases, must at least provide a self-commitment. As a result, the number of suppliers who have committed to complying with our Code of Conduct is constantly increasing.

Corporate Purchasing strives for a reliable supply chain strategy and pursues a stable procurement system to ensure high quality, reliable delivery and competitive prices. When selecting suppliers and service providers, Corporate Purchasing seeks to create diversity within the supply chain and intends to build long-term, mutually beneficial relationships.
By carefully selecting suppliers, Corporate Purchasing ensures a sustainable supply chain for new and existing business relationships with a multi-layered approach:

• Our Supplier Code of Conduct (SCoC) is an obligatory part of our supplier contracts and fulfils the requirements of the German Supply Chain Sustainability Act (LkSG). The code contains ethical, social and ecological principles as well as the consideration of fundamental human rights.
• As part of the LkSG risk analysis, high-risk suppliers are asked to provide detailed information in the form of a self-declaration. This is evaluated by an external service provider in order to identify potential risks at an early stage and initiate appropriate countermeasures.

The strategically most important product groups (=A product groups, which account for 70% of the purchasing volume) are developed, reviewed and updated on an annual basis by Corporate Purchasing. Particularly relevant product groups are software, IT professional services, consulting, hardware and information services. 

All types of risks are taken into account by Corporate Purchasing: Supplier risks (e.g. compliance, financial stability and quality), location risks (e.g. strikes and natural disasters), country risks (e.g. political risks and sanctions) and product group risks (e.g. import regulations). A warning system has been introduced for this purpose and sends warning messages in case risks are identified. These are evaluated manually and, depending on their impact, Corporate Purchasing, together with the commissioning division, seeks active exchange with the contracting parties in order to minimize and, if necessary, eliminate risks.

We continuously and systematically seek dialogue with our internal and external stakeholders. Understanding the needs, concerns, and expectations of our stakeholders helps us to determine the focus topics of your work. Our stakeholder engagement includes discussions with ESG rating agencies, memberships in and commitments to various initiatives, as well as our social and regulatory engagement.

Our ESG ratings 

The exchange with rating agencies is a central element of our stakeholder engagement. There are numerous sustainability ratings by independent institutions that assess companies according to their approach to ecological, economic and social impacts, risks, and opportunities. We use this external validation of our own ESG endeavours to continuously improve and sharpen our ESG profile. Insights from the ESG rating process were also factored into our materiality analysis. Besides providing valuable information and implications for the rated company, ratings and indices enhance transparency by supplying important information on markets and competition.  

Our aim is to remain among the 90th percentile in three leading independent ESG ratings (S&P, Sustainalytics, MSCI). In addition to the actual ESG rating, we therefore monitor the development of our ESG ratings very closely, in order to systematically identify and realise potential for improvements over the years. 
 

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Our memberships and commitments  

We foster exchange with various stakeholder groups by initiating and actively participating in local, national and global initiatives. Through our membership in these initiatives, we support a range of activities related to sustainable development, climate change and environmental protection, social welfare and financial market transparency. 

The UN Global Compact (UNGC), an initiative of the United Nations with the goal to build a more sustainable and equitable global economy, is one of our memberships. You can learn more about how we are implementing the UNGC principles from our communication on progress as well as from our current annual report.

In November 2022, Deutsche Börse AG joined the Net Zero Financial Service Providers Alliance (NZFSPA), committing to support the goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 or sooner, in line with a maximum global temperature rise of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. As one of the eight sector-specific initiatives of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), launched in April 2021, the NZFSPA includes service providers like investment advisors, rating agencies, auditors, and exchanges. Members have pledged to set targets for transforming services and products to support the goal of a net-zero global economy. To fulfil these commitments, NZFSPA subgroups have developed industry-specific targets. The exchange subgroup has provided guidance that has special reference to the context of the exchange industry as a whole as well as the varied circumstances of individual exchanges. In 2023, Deutsche Börse AG has published its first report for the NZFSPA following such guidance. The objective of this report is to outline to what extent Deutsche Börse AG is currently meeting or working towards meeting the exchange-focused and market-focused targets set by the NZFSPA exchange sub-group. The disclosures within this report align with the information, timelines, and NZFSPA target setting guidance for exchanges.

You can find our NZFSPA 2023 Report here and an overview of our key memberships here.

Our social engagement 

As a socially responsible company we want to give something back to society – we live up to this claim by participating in charitable causes and, together with experienced partners, seek to create positive social value. You can find further information about our engagement activities here. 

Our regulatory engagement ​ 

Based on our specific knowledge as a financial market infrastructure provider, we share our expertise about the evolution of the regulatory framework. Thus, we make a permanent contribution to strengthening financial market infrastructure and capital markets as a vital tool for achieving society’s overarching objectives. We take part in consultations on political and regulatory initiatives, for example, and submit comments and papers to explain the implications of certain regulatory proposals for Deutsche Börse Group, our clients, the financial markets and society as a whole. Our white papers and studies also contribute to an improved understanding of specific aspects of financial market regulation. 

You can find more information about our regulatory engagement here. 

ESG Best Practice Guide 

We are offering an ESG Best Practice Guide as a guideline for companies affected by regulation. The Guide presents internationally valid reporting methods including selected best-practice examples and, by giving seven recommendations, offers a structured approach to an intelligent and above all efficient way of dealing with the topic of sustainability in capital market communications. This makes it particularly suitable for smaller and medium-sized companies as well as for newcomers to reporting. The Guide, which is reviewed regularly to ensure it is up to date, therefore supplements Deutsche Börse Group’s range of services for issuers. 

Deutsche Börse Group can increase its information transparency for investors, founders, asset managers and market participants, but also for external observers, by including ESG aspects in its product portfolio – be it by integrating ESG ratings, data and/or analysis, or by reporting data on trading volumes for securities, derivatives, renewable energies and/or commodities. Below is an overview of our ESG products (taken from our GRI Index).

ESG products by segment 

You can also find a comprehensive description of Deutsche Börse’s sustainable products in the ESG-product hub.