Latin America’s best bank for corporate responsibility 2019: Bancolombia

Awards for Excellence 2019

This year Bancolombia wins the award for the region’s best bank for corporate responsibility. Some 62% of Bancolombia’s employees are women and 57% of them are in leadership roles. These are some of the highest numbers for women in banking in the world. Why? 

“Because we need bankers who are detail-oriented and who care about our clients – these are qualities women have,” says Lina María Montoya Madrigal, impact and social innovation manager at Bancolombia. 

But it’s not just female representation that Bancolombia has been developing. The focus on workforce development is impressive, as is its support of the changing needs of its employees. Some 1,500 of its employees can and do work remotely. 

“It helps employees manage their lives better. People become more productive and engaged when given this flexibility, and it’s also better for the environment,” says Madrigal.

Bancolombia is also hugely innovative in its social and environmental policies and initiatives. Born out of an employee-volunteering programme to coach entrepreneurs, the bank invested in and adopted a car-pooling app for its 22,000 employees to lower its carbon footprint and improve congestion in cities. 

Those who share 10 rides a month get discounted parking, while prolific users can use an electric vehicle from the bank’s fleet. It is a scheme that has been adopted by other companies across the country. 

The bank also has an initiative to certify farmers as organic. In some of the poorest areas of the country, farmers have been growing organically simply because they cannot afford pesticides. 

Bancolombia runs a project working with so-called ‘B corporations’ to certify the produce as organic for export, which brings premium prices to farmers. It simultaneously runs financial inclusion and business training. The project has tripled the number of organic certified hectares in Colombia. 

The bank also helps individuals living near protected areas calculate and sell their carbon credits in order to support their livelihoods and prevent further deforestation.