2020 Universal registration document and annual financial report - BNP PARIBAS590

7

7

a Committed Bank: information ConCerninG the eConomiC, soCial, CiviC and environmental resPonsiBility of BnP PariBas Our civic responsibility: being a positive agent for change

Employment A long-standing partner of the Association for the Right to Economic Initiative (Adie), in 2020 the BNP Paribas Foundation assisted it in arranging finance for nearly 2,500 people who were starting up or expanding a small business. In 2020, BNP Paribas support for Adie was renewed by EUR 1.3 million per year from 2021 to 2023. Objective: to finance 13,000 entrepreneurs thanks to the support given to the 16 Adie branches.

Outreach actions In addition to this, in 2020 the BNP Paribas Foundation extended its policy of supporting local associations to 80% of people living in priority urban areas. In 2020, 279 associations benefited from the Foundation s EUR 840,000 budget.

Promoting health prevention in Seine-Saint Denis

As part of the first Covid plan, launched by BNP Paribas in April 2020, the BNP Paribas Foundation has launched a new scheme endowed with EUR 350,000 for Seine-Saint-Denis. The objectives of this programme are the creation of a People s Health Academy and the launch of new services to increase access.

Repairing the social ladder in France

Opened in June 2019, L'Ascenseur is the only place in Europe that brings together some 20 associations and social enterprises around a common goal: facilitating access to education, employment, sport and the arts for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. L'Ascenseur was made possible thanks to the decisive support of the various businesses of BNP Paribas, which is the main sponsor and founding sponsor. In 2020, from the start of the health crisis, the L'Ascenseur collective worked hard to equip young people who needed them with computers so that they could follow their courses remotely during the first lockdown. With the help of BNP Paribas, nearly a thousand computers were distributed by the associations of L'Ascenseur, thus providing relief to young people and their families.

Developing training to promote integration

BNP Paribas has become a partner of the J-PAL Europe laboratory, co-founded by Esther Duflo, for a research project aimed at assessing the impact of a training programme for newly arrived immigrant parents in France. This training aims to improve the success of children by involving parents in their education and to promote the linguistic and civic integration of parents into French society.

BNP PARIBAS IS COMMITTED TO RESPECTING HUMAN RIGHTS

Commitment at the highest level

BNP Paribas adheres to internationally-recognised human rights standards. This commitment is expressed at the highest level in the BNP Paribas Declaration on Human Rights, signed by the Group s Executive Management and promoting the respect of these rights within BNP Paribas sphere of influence.

The Group supports the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD s Guiding Principles for Multinational Enterprises, in accordance with the Protect, Respect and Remedy framework. It has also chosen to follow the recommendations of the United Nations Guiding Principles Reporting Framework, launched in February 2015.

Moreover, in late 2018, BNP Paribas published a Responsible Business Relationships Charter(1) addressed to its customers, reaffirming its will to work with companies demonstrating a high level of governance and responsibility in matters of human rights and fundamental freedoms, health and safety and the environment, in their business practices.

Since 2013, BNP Paribas has been taking part in the meetings and annual gatherings of the Thun group, an informal group representing international banks seeking to improve the integration of the UN Guiding Principles within the policies and practices of financial institutions. For example, the subject of human rights performance indicators wasthe focus of discussions in 2020. The role of finance in the fight against forced labour was also discussed.

Training

The Group focuses on employee training, which is an important component of its human rights risks management process. Since 2016, a Human Rights and Business training course, set up with the help of the French association Entreprises pour les Droits de l Homme (EDH), of which BNP Paribas is a member, has been assigned to Group employees who can be confronted with human rights issues as part of their work. At the end of November 2020(2), 89% of the employees to whom the training had been assigned had completed the online awareness module dealing with taking human rights into account in lending decisions. Since 2016, more than 12,000 employees have completed this training.

(1) Accessible at www.group.bnpparibas/en

(2) As a large-scale awareness-raising campaign on human rights in the BNL workforce was launched at the end of 2020, the period for calculating the training rate was exceptionally stopped on 22/11/2020 in order to reflect the Group s performance over the long term, in a proforma reporting logic.