Environmental and Social Policy
As Vakıf Leasing family, we act with the awareness of our responsibilities towards the future communities in every field. With this awareness, we consider supporting of sustainable projects among our top priorities by adopting an environmentally and socially sensitive approach in our leasing activities.
We see human capital as a core value, and we aim to provide equal opportunity, work-life balance, and a safe and healthy working environment for the happiness and motivation of our employees. We support the protection of human rights and adopt the principle of equality, justice and respect in all fields. We adopt an ethical discipline in accordance with national and international standards regarding child labor and forced labor.
We carry out improvement and development studies in all of our fields of activity by following the sectoral developments in environmental and social issues, legislative changes and best practices around the world.
We support projects that contribute to sustainable development and we make sure that these are projects that comply with our Environmental and Social Policy. We do not finance the activities included in the "Exclusion List" attached to this policy, regardless of any threshold.
We ensure that the labor and working conditions of the supported projects comply with national legislation and internationally accepted approaches, and that the fundamental rights of employees are protected. We are working to prevent and reduce the risks of our leasing operations that affect public health, safety and security. We approach the issues of land acquisition and economic displacement in the supported projects with sensitivity, we observe the principles of protecting biological diversity and cultural heritage within the impact area of the projects and avoiding negative effects on living conditions.
Within the scope of the Environmental and Social Management System, we conduct environmental and social assessment of leasing activities above a certain threshold, develop action plans to reduce risks according to the determined risk category, and monitor its performance throughout the lease term.
In all our activities, we take various measures to ensure resource (energy, water, paper, etc.) efficiency and to minimize our impact on the environment. We prefer products and consumables that have longer lifetimes or can be recycled instead of disposable products.
We keep all our communication channels open, we enable parties who are directly and / or indirectly affected by Vakıf Leasing activities to submit their complaints via the "Suggestion, Request and Complaint Form" on our website, we carefully review all incoming notifications and ensure effective grievance management.
Exclusion List:
Vakıf Leasing undertakes not to support the activities listed below within the scope of corporate information:
- Production and/or trade in any product or activity deemed illegal under host country laws or regulations or international conventions and agreements, for instance;
a. Production or trade in products containing PCB[i],
b. Production or trade in pesticides/herbicides, internationally prohibited drugs and other hazardous materials (Rotterdam Convention, Stockholm Convention)[ii]
c. Production or trade in ozone depleting substances that prohibited internationally (Montreal Protocol)[iii]
- Production or activities involving harmful or exploitative forms of forced labor[iv] /harmful child labor[v]
- Trade in wildlife or production of, or trade in, wildlife products regulated under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)
- Fishing activities that are not sustainable (e.g.: Drift net fishing in the marine environment using nets in excess of 2.5 km. in length)
- Forest, wood or forestry products that are not managed sustainably, activities involving such as the destruction of significant habitats (Critical Habitat)
- Production, commercial use, storage, transportation or trade in unbonded asbestos and asbestos fiber containing products
- Production or trade in tobacco
- Production or trade in alcoholic beverages for human consumption (excluding beer and wine)
- Activities of casinos or accommodation facilities with a casino
- Shipment of oil or other hazardous substances in tankers that do not comply with IMO requirements (IMO, MARPOL, SOLAS and Paris MOU) [vi]
- Cross-border movements of wastes which are prohibited by Turkish or international laws (Basel Convention)[vii].
- Activities carried out in wetlands identified as RAMSAR (Wetlands of International Importance Area)
- Activities related to pornography or prostitution
- Activities that threaten the cultural heritage characteristics of places on the UNESCO World Heritage List and activities including situations such as damaging or destruction of a significant cultural heritage / Disputes over significant cultural heritage, activities involving situations such as damage or destroy to them.
- Production or trade in radioactive materials (Except for the purchase of medical equipment, quality control devices and situations in which the use of radioactive materials is extremely limited or insignificant or sufficient protection is provided )
- Activities where racist, non-democratic or discriminatory processes evolve
- Use of diamond mines and commercialisation of diamonds in the countries not adhered to the process of “Kimberley”
[i] PCBs: Polychlorinated biphenyls are a group of highly toxic chemicals. PCBs are likely to be found in oil-filled electrical transformers, capacitors and switchgear dating from 1950 to 1985.
[ii] http://www.who.int and http://www.pic.int
[iii] Ozone Depleting Substances (ODS): Chemical compounds, which react with and delete stratospheric ozone, resulting in “holes in the ozone layer”. http://www.unep.org/ozone/montreal.shtml
[iv] Forced labor means all work or service, not voluntarily performed, that is extracted from an individual under threat of force or penalty.
[v] Harmful child labor means the employment of children that is economically exploitive, or is likely to be hazardous to, or to interfere with, the child’s education, or to be harmful to the child’s health, or physical, mental, spiritual, moral, or social development.
[vi] International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL), Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) (including but not limited to), Tankers prohibited by the Memorandum of Understanding on the State Port of Paris (Paris MOU) and a single tanker older than 25 years old should not be used due to liquidation under MARPOL regulation 13G.
[vii] Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal, http://www.basel.int.
