Battling a reputational firestorm over alleged greenwashing at its DWS asset management arm, Deutsche Bank has appointed Joerg Eigendorf to the newly-created role of chief sustainability officer to “continue to expand the bank’s sustainability area with a view to further developing the strategy and implementing it with more intensity”, it said.
The appointment of its former global head of communications as its first CSO raised eyebrows among ESG professionals. Speaking on a panel at the Oxford Sustainable Finance Summit, Desiree Fixler – the former sustainability head at DWS who turned whistleblower – said that the chief sustainability officer role needs to move from a marketing and communications function to a compliance and C-suite role for top executives to ensure firm-wide alignment and accountability.
Fixler said DWS had made misleading claims of how green or sustainable some its products were, which DWS and Deutsche have denied. "DWS will continue to remain a steadfast proponent of ESG investing as part of its fiduciary role on behalf of its clients," DWS said last year after the allegations became public.
The firms also cite an independent report – commissioned by DWS – that found no evidence for the allegations.
Even so, former CEO Asoka Woehrmann resigned in May after German police raided DWS’s headquarters as part of an investigation into the allegations.
Leading figure
Despite concerns over Eigendorf’s credentials, Deutsche insisted that he had “played a major part in shaping” its ESG strategy. He was responsible for sustainability for more than six years as part of his previous role, which covered CSR as well as communications.
Eigendorf continues to report to Deutsche CEO Christian Sewing, who called him “a leading figure for some years now in driving our bank’s sustainability strategy”.
“Sustainability is a critical success factor for our bank and a central element in our 'Global Hausbank' strategy,” Sewing said.
The bank carved out a separate sustainability department under Eigendorf last year. The area has "attracted a lot of internal and external talent in the last years", a spokesman added.
Viktoriya Brand remains head of group sustainability. She reports to Eigendorf.
Deutsche disclosed in March its first data on financed emissions. It also reaffirmed a commitment to publish 2050 net-zero targets and 2030 intermediate targets for “key carbon intensive portfolios” by the end of this year.
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