Better Health for All

Deutsche Bank demonstrates exceptional commitment to mental health, receiving NAMI's 2023 Corporate Leadership Award for its programs

. It launched the #NotAlone campaign , expanded its Employee Assistance Program , and is a founding member of the Wall Street Mental Health Collaborative . The bank offers 850 global well-being programs supporting mental, physical, social, and financial health , and was recognized as Financial Services Employer of the Year at the InsideOut Mental Health Awards . The company's core financial products and services have no significant direct positive or negative health impact, and its operations do not generate significant health externalities. As a financial institution, its business model does not involve health products or services requiring considerations for price accessibility, user safety, risk transparency, preventative health measures, healthcare data responsibility, or specific industry-related health KPIs like pharmaceutical patents, nutrition, addiction mitigation, or clinical trial ethics.

Fair Money & Economic Opportunity

Deutsche Bank made $1.1 billion in community development loans and qualified investments between January 2021 and March 2023, focusing on affordable housing, healthcare, education, economic mobility, and access to capital for low and moderate-income communities.

Additionally, it issued a €500 million social bond in July 2024 to support affordable housing and services for vulnerable groups. These initiatives, totaling approximately $1.64 billion, represent about 0.34% of its €446,198 million (approximately $481.9 billion) receivables from customers as of December 31, 2024. Deutsche Bank received an “Outstanding” Community Reinvestment Act rating for 25 consecutive years, with the latest rating as of July 2023. The evaluation period from January 2021 to March 2023 identified no evidence of discriminatory or illegal credit practices. In 2024, Deutsche Bank spent €53,441,494 on CSR initiatives and art & culture projects. This represents approximately 1.39% of its 2024 pre-tax profit of €3,842 million.

Fair Pay & Worker Respect

The median hourly pay for Black employees in the UK was 68.2% of the median hourly pay for White employees in 2024, reflecting a 31.8% pay gap.

For gender, the median hourly pay gap in the UK was 24.1% in 2024, meaning women earned 75.9% of men's median hourly pay. In Germany, approximately 96% of all employees were covered by works councils or works council agreements in 2023. The voluntary staff turnover rate was 5.6% in 2023, and the employee commitment index stood at 70% in the same year. Deutsche Bank offers 26 weeks of paid gender-neutral parental leave. In 2023, 568 disciplinary cases and 118 complaints were closed. The bank aims for 35% women in Managing Director, Director, and Vice President roles by the end of 2025, and 30% women in positions one and two levels below the Management Board by 2025.

Fair Trade & Ethical Sourcing

Most KPIs for Fair Trade & Ethical Sourcing are omitted due to a lack of specific, quantifiable data. As a financial services company, Deutsche Bank does not procure or trade physical commodities, leading to N/A scores for 'fair_trade_cert_share' and 'materials_risk_index'. While the bank has a Supplier Code of Conduct and policies requiring contractual confirmation from third-party suppliers regarding modern slavery and human trafficking

, no percentage of contracts with such clauses is provided. The bank states that child or forced labor is never accepted , but no number of substantiated incidents in the last three years is reported. Annual risk assessments are conducted for direct vendors , and a target to react to concerns within three months is set , but no explicit on-site audit frequency or median closure times for corrective actions are given. Similarly, there is no data on traceability coverage or the percentage of the procurement budget directed to diverse suppliers.

Honest & Fair Business

Deutsche Bank and its 80%-owned subsidiary DWS incurred approximately $348.98 million in ethics-related regulatory fines over the past three years.

This includes a $186 million fine from the Federal Reserve in July 2023 for insufficient anti-money laundering controls, a $75 million settlement related to Jeffrey Epstein in May 2023, and a $25 million penalty for DWS in September 2023 for ESG misstatements and AML violations. In 2025, Deutsche Bank received a €23 million fine from BaFin for regulatory breaches and a €10 million fine from CNMV for mis-selling forex derivatives, while DWS was fined €25 million by the Frankfurt prosecutor for greenwashing. DWS was found guilty of greenwashing, leading to a "long-standing greenwashing saga" that began in 2021 and resulted in the "largest-ever greenwashing penalty" by the SEC. Despite having an anti-bribery and corruption policy with annual risk assessments and third-party due diligence, the substantial fines for persistent failures in anti-money laundering controls and customer due diligence indicate significant enforcement weaknesses. The company has a whistleblower policy that encourages anonymous reporting through intranet facilities and email, with reports handled confidentially by a central function and investigation teams, and whistleblowers have successfully sparked investigations. The company has had zero financial restatements in the past five years.

Kind to Animals

Deutsche Bank scored 0% in policies concerning animal testing, factory farming, and habitat destruction.

This indicates a lack of formal policy on animal testing, leading to a -100 score for `animal_testing_policy`. This also indicates no public position on animal welfare legislation or industry standards, resulting in a -90 score for `public_policy_engagement`. The bank's financing activities have supported companies implicated in practices harmful to animals and their habitats. For instance, it provided $1.74 billion in profits through investments in agribusiness companies involved in deforestation and abuses, and financed JBS Group, a company implicated in illegal deforestation and abuses from 2017 to 2019. As a financial services company, Deutsche Bank does not engage in direct animal testing, animal husbandry, or the sourcing of animal-derived products, making several related KPIs not applicable. While the bank has conservation initiatives, such as planting over half a million trees worldwide since 2010 and funding projects that have seen threatened species like leopards and elephants return to habitats in Sri Lanka, specific financial data (e.g., percentage of revenue) required by the `wildlife_conservation_impact` KPI rubric was not provided, leading to its omission.

No War, No Weapons

Deutsche Bank's investment unit, DWS Group, removed restrictions on funds holding defense assets in April 2025, allowing investments in companies with over 10% defense revenue, including nuclear weapons producers.

Deutsche Bank itself has provided substantial financial backing to arms companies, including €36.1 billion in loans and underwritings and €26 billion in shares and bonds between 2019 and 2023. The bank also committed €500 million in liquidity to small- and medium-sized enterprises in the defense and security sector in June 2025 and supports the establishment of the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank (DSRB) to fund defense projects. While the bank has a Controversial Weapons Policy that excludes outlawed weapons financing and declines transactions involving controversial weapons systems, it allows case-by-case consideration for other arms investments and has been critiqued for potentially funding entities in conflict zones. The bank's enhanced due diligence requirements include exclusions for controversial weapons, conflict countries, private military security companies, and human-out-of-the-loop weapon systems. The Supervisory Board advises and monitors the Management Board on sustainability topics, and quarterly updates on reputational risk are provided to the Group Reputational Risk Committee. Deutsche Bank performs annual SCDDA risk analysis of its own operations and direct suppliers, and 925 environmental and social due diligence reviews of clients and transactions were completed in 2024, with results published in annual Non-Financial Reports. The bank has made formal commitments to internationally recognized standards and principles such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. In 2012, Deutsche Bank continued investments in cluster munitions producers.

Planet-Friendly Business

In 2024, Deutsche Bank's total Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions (excluding Category 15) were 1,111,824 tCO2e, an increase of 6.11% from 1,047,745 tCO2e in 2023.

The bank publishes a full breakdown of these emissions annually. Its near-term carbon reduction targets were validated by the Science-Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) in May 2024. and are aligned with a 1.5°C pathway. In 2024, 97% of the company's electricity was sourced from renewables through purchasing. For 2024, 1.2% of its capital expenditures were aligned with the EU Taxonomy. Deutsche Bank offsets 100% of its residual emissions, with 70.5% complying with the Gold Standard and 26.5% with the Verified Carbon Standard or Verra. In terms of supply chain transparency, 53.75% of its largest 400 suppliers responded to the CDP climate change questionnaire in 2024. Deutsche Bank is integrating climate and transition risks across its risk management framework.

Respect for Cultures & Communities

Deutsche Bank has no formal partnership agreements explicitly with indigenous or local community groups, despite its financing activities impacting such populations. The bank lacks processes to ensure clients respect Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) where required, despite expecting clients to obtain FPIC.

Its financing has been linked to multiple instances of cultural disruptions and destruction of cultural heritage sites, including those affecting Wangan and Jagalingou Traditional Owners, Indigenous communities impacted by the Keystone XL and Coastal GasLink Pipelines, and the Wampis and Achuar Nations protesting Petroperú operations. While the bank expects clients to ensure respect for cultural heritage and conducts enhanced environmental and social (ES) reviews for transactions with potential impacts, including High Conservation Value (HCV) assessments that consider cultural value, the lack of FPIC enforcement and documented incidents indicate significant gaps. There is no evidence of community representation on the bank's governance or advisory bodies. The bank provides general grievance mechanisms, such as whistleblowing and complaints management channels, but these are not specified as community-specific. Deutsche Bank translates client publications to suit all markets and operates in many countries with diverse nationalities, indicating basic language inclusivity.

Safe & Smart Tech

Deutsche Bank achieved a 99.96% completion rate for mandatory data protection training in 2023.

Its Information Security Management System has been ISO 27001 certified since 2012. The bank established an Artificial Intelligence Oversight Forum in 2023 and has Artificial Intelligence & Data Ethics Principles based on EU guidelines, rigorously testing for inferred bias and emphasizing diverse algorithm development for fair AI practices. It strives for explainability in AI, with its dbLumina system providing clickable citations for fact-checking. Users have strong control over their data, including rights to opt-out, access, delete, block, or correct personal information, with Group Data Privacy handling requests. Data collected on its website is retained only as long as necessary , with specific cookie retention periods of 6 months or session-based. The bank operates a vulnerability management program , partners with Bugcrowd for vulnerability submission reports , and uses SSL EV certificates , diverse encryption layers , sophisticated internal encoding , and aims for email encryption. A dedicated Group Data Privacy function advises and monitors lawful data collection/processing. The bank has also published memes discussing AI copyright, human bias, and public trust in AI with personal data. However, in 2023, Deutsche Bank experienced a data breach affecting a mid-five-digit number of retail clients due to a supplier vulnerability , and another breach involving an external service provider. The bank was fined €50,000 by BaFin for 'significantly late' notification of a June 2023 incident. Additionally, a MOVEit SQL injection vulnerability was exploited before notification was sent out. BaFin also issued a public rebuke and appointed an independent monitor following an IT project fiasco that locked clients out of accounts.

Zero Waste & Sustainable Products

In 2023, Deutsche Bank recovered 57.58% of its total waste through recycling, reuse, or composting.

The company reduced the hazardousness of its waste by 81.18% since 2021, with hazardous waste making up only 0.78% of total waste generated in 2023. Deutsche Bank targets a 46% reduction in emissions from its own operations and supply chain, including waste, by the end of 2030 compared to a 2019 baseline. The company's waste reduction initiatives include consistent efforts to minimize waste generation at the source, which contributed to a 27.14% decrease in total waste generation from 2021 to 2023, and funding plastic collection with Ocean Co., resulting in 134,000 kg of plastic collected.