Month: March 2024

CINCINNATI, March 5, 2024 /3BL/ – Fifth Third is proud to announce it has been named to the 2024 World’s Most Ethical Companies® list by Ethisphere, a global leader in defining and advancing the standards of ethical business practices.

This is the fifth time Fifth Third has earned this recognition from Ethisphere and is one of only four banks worldwide, including two in the U.S., to be recognized on the 2024 list. In 2024,136 companies were recognized across 20 countries and 44 industries.

“We are honored Ethisphere recognized us for the fifth time,” said Tim Spence, chairman, chief executive officer and president of Fifth Third. “Our ambition is to be the One Bank people most value and trust – and that trust is earned every day when our employees do the right thing for our shareholders, our customers and our communities. This recognition is a testament to the hard work and commitment of our dedicated employees.”

Fifth Third’s commitment to high ethical standards extends from its innovative and inclusive products and services that benefit lives and businesses, to the way it does business and cares for people and the planet. Learn more about Fifth Third’s commitment to doing well by doing good in our Sustainability Report.

“It’s always inspiring to recognize the World’s Most Ethical Companies®. Through the rigorous review process, we see the dedication of these organizations to continually improving their ethics, compliance, and governance practices to the benefit of all stakeholders,” said Erica Salmon Byrne, Ethisphere’s chief strategy officer and executive chair. “Companies that elevate best-in-class cultures of ethics and integrity set a standard for corporate citizenship for their peers and competitors to follow. Congratulations to Fifth Third for achieving this honor and demonstrating that strong ethics is good business.”

Ethics & Performance

The listed 2024 World’s Most Ethical Companies® Honorees outperformed a comparable index of global companies by 12.3 percentage points from January 2019 to January 2024.

Methodology & Scoring

The World’s Most Ethical Companies assessment is grounded in Ethisphere’s proprietary Ethics Quotient®, an extensive questionnaire that requires companies to provide over 240 different proof points on their culture of ethics; environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices; ethics and compliance; diversity, equity and inclusion; and initiatives that support a strong value chain. That data undergoes further qualitative analysis by Ethisphere’s panel of experts who spend thousands of hours vetting and evaluating each year’s group of applicants. This process serves as an operating framework to capture and codify truly best-in-class ethics and compliance practices from organizations across industries and from around the world.

About Fifth Third

Fifth Third is a bank that’s as long on innovation as it is on history. Since 1858, we’ve been helping individuals, families, businesses and communities grow through smart financial services that improve lives. Our list of firsts is extensive, and it’s one that continues to expand as we explore the intersection of tech-driven innovation, dedicated people and focused community impact. Fifth Third is one of the few U.S.-based banks to have been named among Ethisphere’s World’s Most Ethical Companies® for several years. With a commitment to taking care of our customers, employees, communities and shareholders, our goal is not only to be the nation’s highest performing regional bank, but to be the bank people most value and trust.

Fifth Third Bank, National Association, is a federally chartered institution. Fifth Third Bancorp is the indirect parent company of Fifth Third Bank, and its common stock is traded on the NASDAQ® Global Select Market under the symbol “FITB.” Investor information and press releases can be viewed at www.53.com.

About Ethisphere 

Ethisphere is the global leader in defining and advancing the standards of ethical business practices that strengthen corporate brands, build trust in the marketplace, and deliver business success. Ethisphere has deep expertise in measuring and defining core ethics standards using data-driven insights that help companies build strong cultures of ethics and integrity. Ethisphere honors superior achievement through its World’s Most Ethical Companies® recognition program, provides a community of industry experts with the Business Ethics Leadership Alliance (BELA), and showcases trends and best practices in ethics with Ethisphere Magazine. Ethisphere also advances business performance through data-driven assessments, guidance, and benchmarking against its unparalleled data: the Culture Quotient dataset reflecting the ethical business practices of 3+ million employees around the world; and the Ethics Quotient dataset, featuring 240+ data points on the ethics, compliance, social, and governance practices of the World’s Most Ethical Companies. For more information, visit https://ethisphere.com.

SAIC is a decorated military veterans employer, holding numerous accolades for our work environment, culture and commitment to veterans.Veterans at SAIC are working in high-tech fields to bolster our nation’s defense and readiness, including AI and machine learning, cyber and digital engineering.Veterans make up more than one-third of SAIC’s workforce and are supported by numerous company resources, including the Military/Veterans Employee Resource Group, a 1,000-strong group for professional and social networking.

/3BL/ – SAIC is proud to foster a strong culture of supporting veterans through our dedication to the well-being of those who have served our nation. We are honored to again be named a “veteran and spouse hiring champion,” “America’s best employer for veterans” and a HIRE Vets Medallion awardee for our “unparalleled commitment to recruiting, hiring and retaining veterans” — among other recognitions for our steadfast support of this important community.

What is it like to work for SAIC as a veteran?

Once on board, veteran employees enjoy utilizing the skills and expertise garnered during their military service as a crucial part of our mission to advance the nation’s defense and readiness. With Department of Defense customers representing more than 50% of our business, we are grateful that veterans have an affinity for SAIC as an employer who offers interesting and meaningful work. Veterans report that a transition to SAIC allows them to continue their service but in a different way, as they work alongside other veterans and those in uniform.

Our veteran employees are working with emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence and machine learning, in high-velocity areas such as advanced analytics and simulation, software, cyber and digital engineering, just to name a few. We are grateful to all veterans for their military service and recognize the central role they forge at SAIC in ensuring our nation’s safety and prosperity.

How does SAIC support veteran well-being?

Veterans make up more than one-third of our employees and are important contributors to SAIC’s culture of service to others, anchored by our values. More than 1,000 veterans are members of our Military/Veterans Employee Resource Group, which was established to support veteran well-being and allow the entire family to connect professionally and socially.

SAIC also has a long tradition of citizenship and outreach to local and national nonprofit partners who help veterans and families in need, including Building Homes for Heroes — a Four Star Charity Navigator nonprofit that modifies and gifts mortgage-free homes to disabled veterans and their families. For more than a decade, SAIC employees have been especially fond of this effort and participate in placing the final touches on homes before welcoming the receiving hero families.

Giving back is part of the SAIC DNA, and we have veterans to thank for helping lead the way.

If you are interested in exploring a career with SAIC, please visit our transitioning military veterans page.

At first glance you may not think there are many parallels between careers in the military and banking. But Erica Choi, KeyBank Senior Vice President and new Commercial Sales Leader for the Capital Region (Albany, N.Y.) says her time at West Point and service in the U.S. Army gave her a strong foundation and skills she uses as a middle market banker.

“Being taught about and placed in leadership situations where you have to lead people at a young age helps you, even when you’re not in a direct leadership position, to pull a team together. It sharpens you as a leader and helps you focus on the goal and the people,” said Choi.

Choi’s interest in service started early while growing up near Scott Air Force Base in Southwestern Illinois. She began her military career as a U.S. Army intelligence officer, leading a counter-terrorism team in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. But she credits her time at the United States Military Academy with helping foster leadership values that she lives to this day.

“Knowing how to face adversity, work through it, and find the help you need and overcome it is huge.”

After completing her time in service, Choi worked in marketing and brand management in the consumer-packaged goods industry with responsibility for iconic brands such as Jell-O, A-1 Steak Sauce, and Beech-Nut. She then served as an Area Manager for the Small Business Administration for eight years before moving into banking in 2016. Her roles have spanned both consumer and commercial lines of business. Choi joined KeyBank in 2020 as a commercial relationship manager. She credits Key’s commitment to diversity and networking opportunities fostered by the Key Military Network Key Business Impact and Networking Group (KBING) as cultural difference makers that have helped her and her colleagues.

“There are a lot of military members and family in the area (the Capital Region). It’s a place of comfort where you feel known pretty immediately. Sometimes it takes a while to explain your military background to people who haven’t lived it. But you can get together with a group of veterans and in 15-20 seconds tell them where you’ve been and they get you right away. It’s a place where you’re really known and understood. There’s camaraderie and it’s fun”

It’s those connections and the lifelong skills from her years of service that Choi says continue to position her well as a team leader and client centric relationship builder.

“West Point and the Army is the leadership lab that is second to none. Nobody does it better. From the time that I was 18 or 19-years-old, I had one or two cadets I was responsible for and that grew. You mature and you learn. It’s mission and people no matter what.”

Learn more about KeyBank’s commitment to helping clients and communities thrive
 Learn more about KeyBank’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion
 Learn more about how KeyBank has been recognized as a top company for veterans and a top military friendly and military friendly spouse employer 

In a recent episode of ESG Insider from S&P Global, host Esther Whieldon strives to answer the question, What will it take to decarbonize supply chains? For example, what will it take for companies to achieve net-zero goals and decarbonize supply chains — including those involved in the hard-to-abate sectors such as transportation? 

Surprise, “the answer may not always be as simple as buying renewables or using electric batteries,” Whieldon said. To learn more, Whieldon sat down with guests from several sectors – including Sarah Mouriño, Senior Director of Sustainability for DP World Americas – to explore how companies are moving from setting sustainability-related targets to figuring out how to reach those goals. 

With over two decades of experience – including leadership roles at Maersk and the International Maritime Organization – Mouriño brings a wealth of knowledge on transitioning the asset-heavy, diesel-reliant maritime and freight sector towards a more sustainable future. 

Hint: Navigating the transition to a more sustainable, low-carbon future will require collective action, innovative thinking, and strategic partnerships. 

The Decarbonization Challenge

Decarbonization is “the No. 1 thing on every sustainability agenda for every major company that operates a freight or maritime operation,” Mouriño said. “The biggest challenge that we have is decarbonization. It’s a very asset-heavy industry that’s highly reliant on heavy machinery that’s operated by diesel fuel.” This underscores the enormity of the challenge, with port terminals and cargo logistics operations dependent on large, energy-intensive machinery.

Mouriño shed light on the formidable challenges and innovative strategies shaping the decarbonization efforts within the maritime and freight industry.  She noted that DP World’s goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, with interim targets for 2030 and 2040, demands a radical overhaul of existing technologies and fuel sources. This includes aggressive testing and deployment of alternative technologies, as the company aims for large-scale transformation.

Pioneering the Zero Emission Port Alliance

A significant step forward is the formation of the Zero-Emission Port Alliance, announced at COP 28. This collaborative effort, announced in partnership with APM Terminals, is designed to bring together equipment manufacturers, port authorities, terminal operators, and other stakeholders to figure out, “How do we create these technologies, how do we deploy them at scale, and what is the tipping point that we all need to get to in order to make this a reality for our industry?” Mouriño said. The alliance seeks to harness the industry’s collective expertise and resources to overcome technological hurdles and achieve scalability.

Electrification and Hydrogen: The Dual Pathways

Battery-electric solutions and hydrogen are being held up as promising pathways to decarbonization. This focus highlights the industry’s multifaceted approach. While electrification offers a direct route to reducing emissions for smaller equipment, the challenge of powering larger machinery with batteries remains. Hydrogen, with its higher energy yield, appears more suitable for heavy-duty applications, though questions about production, infrastructure, and environmental impact persist.

“Each solution has its pros and cons,” Mouriño said. “ So it’s not clear yet as to which one is going to work out the best, and neither of them is a silver bullet solution.”

Industry-Wide Priority

Decarbonization is not just a DP World agenda but a sector-wide imperative, dominating sustainability discussions across the freight and maritime industry. The complexity and cost of transitioning away from diesel, coupled with the longevity and investment associated with heavy machinery, make this a daunting task. Yet, the potential for efficiency gains and cost savings through improved supply chain utilization presents a compelling case for innovation and investment.

Looking Ahead

As the industry grapples with these challenges, the journey towards decarbonization is characterized by experimentation, collaboration, and a relentless pursuit of efficiency. The dual focus on technological advancement and operational optimization underscores a holistic approach to sustainability, with the ultimate goal of harmonizing economic and environmental objectives.

For more insights into decarbonization, listen to the full podcast at ESG Insider from S&P Global.

Whether adjusting for the unexpected or deciding on an entirely new path, we commit to marching forward. In our second year with a focused ESG and sustainability strategy, we did just that — kept our focus on making incremental progress and being open and honest about where we are in our journey. 

The 2023 Baker Tilly Imprints | Impact Report details this journey and includes roadmap achievements, materiality expansion and next steps for 2024. Here are a few highlights of the stories and metrics: 

Our next iteration of our DEI strategy empowered our industries, service lines and geographies to drive activation of equity and inclusion programs at the local level, further embedding them in our business. We introduced resource groups that support and connect our caregivers and people who are neurodiverse and/or have physical disabilities, and we created easy access to the health and well-being benefits and services we offer our team members.   Our materiality assessment put ethics, compliance and independence in the top spot in the eyes of our clients, matching what our team members said last year. We expanded our already robust ethics education platform and increased transparency around the role and responsibilities of our Board of Partners firmwide. We started on the path to inventory our environmental sustainability data, taking a big leap with the procurement of a metrics-reporting platform to track our GHG emissions. For our clients, we proudly established multiple sustainability collaborations with digital reporting companies and the first energy credit marketplace, and embraced our leadership role in navigating the energy credit complexity of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). 

Discover more about how we’re making a difference for our people, our clients, our communities and our planet in our 2023 Baker Tilly Imprints | Impact Report.