Reporting and

Self-Assessment

Template

Principles for Responsible Banking

SpareBank 1 Østlandet 2023

Reviewed version (V2) from September 2022

Principle 1:

Alignment

We will align our business strategy to be consistent with and contribute to individuals' needs and society's goals, as expressed in the Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Climate Agreement and relevant national and regional frameworks.

Business model

Describe (high-level) your bank's business model, including the main customer segments served, types of products and services provided, the main sectors and types of activities across the main geographies in which your bank operates or provides products and services. Please also quantify the information by disclosing e.g. the distribution of your bank's portfolio

  1. in terms of geographies, segments (i.e. by balance sheet and/or off-balance sheet) or by disclosing the number of customers and clients served.

SpareBank 1 Østlandet is a regional savings bank which operates in Norway. Its market area is Eastern Norway, including Innlandet County. Loans to the Retail Market (RM) and the Corporate Market (CM) are the largest business areas, with RM accounting for 72 per cent and CM 28 per cent in 2022.

Retail Division

The Retail Division serves our 377 000 retail customers. The Bank provides the financial services our customers need through our core activities, which include savings, financing, money transfer services, insurance, accident prevention, and capital and investment management.

Corporate Division

The Corporate Division serves our 27 000 corporate customers, which are mainly small and medium-sized enterprises, the public sector, as well as clubs, teams and associations. An important part of the Bank's contribution to society involves financing good projects that stimulate job growth and development, which in turn contributes to local prosperity in our market area and makes the region more attractive.

The Corporate Division offers financing for investments and operations, advice, money-transfer services in Norway and abroad, interest rate and currency hedging, investment of surplus liquidity, and insurance cover for people and commercial buildings and property. In much of what it does it works closely with the Retail Division and subsidiaries and associated companies that offer leasing, factoring, accounting and advisory services. The division has specialists within insurance, pensions and money transfer services.

See our annual report 2022: https://www.spareban k1.no/content/dam/S B1/bank/ostlandet/o moss/investor/2023/ost-SPOL-Annual-Report-2022.pdf

P.46 for business areas and support functions, p.48 specifically for retail division and p.56 for corporate division.

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In addition to banking, investment and insurance services, we also offer real estate, accountancy, leasing and other financial services through our subsidiary companies.

Organisation Market and Capital Market

The capital market division serves high-net-worth individuals and companies, providing good advice and solutions to achieve risk- adjusted returns on free capital. The Bank's brokerage desk helps to ensure that the needs of import and export companies for foreign currency are met. It also helps customers identify a significant proportion of their currency and interest rate risk.

The organisation market (OM) serves the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) and LO affiliated associations and unions, which are important partners, owners, investors and customers. The department works closely with elected representatives in our market area in which the OM's role is to highlight, present and train elected representatives and LO members in LO's advantage programme, including LOfavør residential mortgages.

Strategy alignment

Does your corporate strategy identify and reflect sustainability as strategic priority/ies for your bank?

  • Yes
    ☐ No

Please describe how your bank has aligned and/or is planning to align its strategy to be consistent with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Paris Climate Agreement, and relevant national and regional frameworks.

Does your bank also reference any of the following frameworks or sustainability regulatory reporting requirements in its strategic priorities or policies to implement these?

  • UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights
  • International Labour Organization fundamental conventions
  • UN Global Compact
  • UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
  • Any applicable regulatory reporting requirements on environmental risk assessments, e.g. on climate risk - please specify which ones: The Bank is subject to the requirements of section3-3(c) of the Accounting Act, which requires it to disclose information to the extent necessary to understand the Bank's development, performance and financial position, as well as the consequences of the Bank's activities in relation to the environment, social conditions, workingenvironment, compliance with human rights and combating corruption and bribery.
  • Any applicable regulatory reporting requirements on social risk assessments, e.g. on modern slavery - please specify which ones: The Transparency Act, which entered into force in June 2022, requires the Bank to carry out due diligence assessments in line with the OECDGuidelines for Multinational Enterprises and to publish an account of the due diligence assessments by the end of June each year.
  • None of the above

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Sustainability is at the core of our corporate strategy, and is one of 4 main goals for the bank: Our vision for 2025 is that "We are a clear driving force for sustainable change". In our efforts on sustainability, we are focusing on priority areas like responsible lending, combating economic crime, ethics and anti-corruption, requirements for providers of financial services, and ethical marketing of products and services. We are making the investments necessary to achieve the Bank's long-term sustainability goals.

This means, for example, that our sustainability efforts are based on a research-based concept. We are contributing to sustainable transition in our market area by channelling capital into sustainable projects, and to the necessary transition to a sustainable and climate-neutral society. To succeed, we must also ensure that sustainability is an integral part of the Bank's operations and that we are actively contributing to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals, both in customer-oriented work and in internal operations, including in our supply chains.

See our reporting from the annual report referenced in the right column. For an overview of our strategy see Sustainability Strategy document on our website. For an overview of how we are implementing susutainability in our business operations, see our policies available on our websites.

See our annual report 2022: https://www.spareban k1.no/content/dam/S B1/bank/ostlandet/o moss/investor/2023/ost-SPOL-Annual-Report-2022.pdf

For in depth of our strategy, see Strategic vision for 2025 p.34. For our sustainability strategy see A clear driving force sustainable transition p.36 and Our approach to sustainability p.38

Sustainability strategy document: https://www.spareban k1.no/content/dam/S B1/bank/ostlandet/ab outus/Sustainability-strategy-2022-2025-SB1O-web.pdf

Implementation to our policies see our page: https://www.spareban k1.no/en/ostlandet/ab out- us/sustainability/guidelines-and-policies.html

Principle 2:

Impact and Target Setting

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We will continuously increase our positive impacts while reducing the negative impacts on, and managing the risks to, people and environment resulting from our activities, products and services. To this end, we will set and publish targets where we can have the most significant impacts.

2.1 Impact Analysis (Key Step 1)

Show that your bank has performed an impact analysis of its portfolio/s to identify its most significant impact areas and determine priority areas for target-setting. The impact analysis

shall be updated regularly1 and fulfil the following requirements/elements (a-d)2:

  1. Scope:What is the scope of your bank's impact analysis? Please describe which parts of the bank's core business areas, products/services across the main geographies that the bank operates in (as described under 1.1) have been considered in the impact analysis. Please also describe which areas have not yet been included, and why.

Geographical scope:

SpareBank 1 Østlandet operates in Norway with a market area in Eastern Norway and Innlandet county.

Business areas in scope of the impact analysis:

Lending to the retail division (RD) and the corporate division (CD) are the largest business areas, where RD accounts for approximately 75% and CD around 25% of the size of the lending portfolio (using financial numbers from 2021). In the impact analysis tool we have used accounting numbers from 2021 from the initial analysis conducted (Impact analysis 2021), but the composition and size of our business areas has remained relatively stable. With no significant changes to todays composition or size, we can say with confidence that the incremental changes to 2022 numbers would not have a material impact on the scope nor conclusions of our impact assessment. This analysis has been carried out for the business areas RD and CD.

Scope of retail division:

RD serves our 377 000 retail customers. The Bank provides the financial services our customers need through our core activities which in the impact analysis tool consists of mortgages, credit cards, savings account, current accounts, education related loans and consumer loans & overdraft.

Scope of Corporate division:

CD serves our 27 000 corporate customers, which are mainly small and medium-sized enterprises, the public sector, as well as clubs, teams and associations. In the impact analysis we have analysed our main industries with Real estate activities, Financial service activities, except insurance and pension funding, Crop

See our report on the impact analysis here: https://www.spareban k1.no/en/ostlandet/ab out- us/sustainability/guidelines-and-policies.html

Scope, p.6

For more information on the size of our business areas see annual report p. 46

For a comparative view of how the size and composition of our portfolio has evolved during the years we have conducted the impact analysis see annual reports 2021 p.57 and 2020 p.57 found on our website:https://www.s parebank1.no/en/ostl andet/about- us/sustainability/guidelines-and-policies.html

  1. That means that where the initial impact analysis has been carried out in a previous period, the information should be updated accordingly, the scope expanded as well as the quality of the impact analysis improved over time.
  2. Further guidance can be found in theInteractive Guidance on impact analysis and target setting.

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Sparebank 1 Østlandet published this content on 30 June 2023 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 30 June 2023 08:38:10 UTC.