Sustainability for a Better Life 2023 Report

Our Social
Agenda Echoes of Harmony: United for Lasting Social Impact At Sabancı Holding, our Social Agenda mirrors the unity, demonstrating our commitment to creating a prosperous future through impactful societal initiatives and collaborative efforts.

#Community Investments #Digital #Social

Our Social Agenda starts from the core of our operations. With over 60,000 employees in our community and impacting millions of individuals through our value chain, we are dedicated to working hard to both transform our business and contribute to the favor of society.

We achieve this through offering SDG-linked products and services, being a responsible employer, and fostering volunteering programs across our employees and their families.

As Sabancı Group, our Social Agenda extends beyond the boundaries of our businesses and where they operate and reach out to a wider society through the numerous projects aimed at driving social transformation undertaken together with Sabancı University and the Sabancı Foundation.

We mobilize our resources strategically to get involved in projects that tackle important social and environmental issues. These projects are designed to mirror our values and priorities and linked to the nature of our businesses, aiming to improve the lives of diverse communities.

Community Investments

Sabancı Holding’s purpose 'to unite Türkiye and the World for a sustainable life with leading enterprises' shapes the Group’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) framework as well. For this reason, social contribution and investments are at the core of Sabancı Holding's CSR strategies.

Focusing on numerous impact areas towards Sustainable Development Goals, Sabancı Group drives social transformation through Sabancı Volunteers, the roof program bringing together all Group companies under several projects, as well as Group companies’ stand-alone CSR initiatives and by providing resource allocation to Sabancı Foundation.

Over the past three years, Sabancı Volunteers dedicated a total of approximately 170 thousand hours to activities as part of Sabancı Republic Day Campaign. In other words, Sabancı volunteers compressed 19 years of work into just three calendar years with their incredible commitment.

Sabancı
Foundation

Sabancı Group harnesses the power of its industrial and business activities to support a wide range of social and cultural efforts through Sabancı Foundation.

Having provided more than 54 thousand scholarships over the last 49 years, Sabancı Foundation encourages and recognizes success with awards in education, the arts and sports. The Foundation’s primary areas of activity include education, social change, culture, and the arts. The Foundation focuses particularly on women, young people, and people with disabilities within these activities.

Introduced in 2007, Sabancı Foundation Grants Program supports civil society organizations in promoting social development to achieve equality and active participation of women, youth, and persons with disabilities in society. During its 17-year history, the Grants Program has extended support to 238 projects and initiatives, directly impacting nearly 300 thousand persons and indirectly reaching over 4.6 million people nationwide.

Sabancı
University

Sabancı University executes numerous future-shaping strategic initiatives toward its vision: becoming a leading global research university.

The University is committed to educating self-confident individuals who embrace universal values, show compassion for the needs of society while focusing on creating solutions, internalize cooperation in creation and development, and are open to continuous development.

One of only three foundation universities in Türkiye officially recognized as a “Research University” by the Presidency of Strategy and Budget and the Council of Higher Education (YÖK), Sabancı University conducts research in faculties, centers, and forums with an interdisciplinary approach in basic and social sciences, engineering and technology, business and art. The University’s 10 centers and forums contribute to scientific research, economic development and society. Embracing research since its founding, Sabancı University has issued more than 8,500 publications* and obtained more than 315 patents*** to date. As of end-November 2023, the University has 285 active research projects with external funding and a total budget of TL 957 million.**
According to the YÖK 2022 University Monitoring and Evaluation Report, Sabancı University ranked first among all universities in Türkiye with 30.66% of its budget spent on R&D. In 2023, Sabancı University faculty members published more than 635 scientific publications* and obtained 23 patents.***

* Data updated: 13.12.2023 (Scopus)
** Data updated: 30.11.2023
*** Data updated: 07.12.2023

Sabancı University Sakıp
Sabancı Museum (SSM)

Sabancı University Sakıp Sabancı Museum (SSM) is an institution that delivers transformative cultural experiences.

SSM is committed to preserving, researching, developing and interpreting its collections and the holistic art heritage of Türkiye while creating common values with all its stakeholders in its exhibitions and events.

SSM Learning Programs, designed for children of different age groups, continued in 2023 with workshops on topics such as painting, science, nature, conservation, archaeology, and abstract art, paralleling current exhibitions and SSM collections. In addition, guided tours for school groups were organized throughout the year.
SSM Learning Programs for Adults organized workshops on various topics throughout the year.

In 2023, SSM hosted the exhibition titled The Living Pyramid, by Agnes Denes, a pioneering artist of ecological art.

Organized with the support of Sabancı Foundation since 2017, The Stage at the Museum hosts culturally significant events through performing arts.

Financial
Inclusion

According to the statistics of the World Bank, approximately 70% of the population in Türkiye consists of people who have bank accounts. About half of this segment consists of people who are 'semi-banking savvy', that is, people who use 1 or 2 products in their relations with banks, make an average of 2 or fewer transactions per month, and who cannot really benefit from the services of the financial system.

Although many customers are switching to digitalized systems, customers in a certain age range still prefer to use physical channels for their financial transactions.

Young customers, on the other hand, have rapid access to financial instruments with digitalized products and services, and have the potential to improve their financial literacy.

In this direction, at Sabancı Group, we aim to design our financial products and services in a simple, accessible, and inclusive manner, especially for underserved groups.

We incentivize unbanked people to utilize our products and services to ensure that they have access to useful and affordable financial services while they can realize their transactions in a secure and practical way.

Our insurance and pension products aim to protect our customers from potential financial risks and to encourage them to make long-term savings. We tailor our financial products and services to the special needs of different groups such as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), women, disabled adults, and young/elder people.

For detailed information on our Community Investments, Sabancı Volunteers Program, Sabancı Republic Day Campaign, Sabancı Foundation, Sabancı University, Sabancı University Sakıp Sabancı Museum and our Financial Inclusion practices, please download Our Social Agenda Section.

Download Our Social Agenda Section