(Finance) – “I believe that finance, in addition to being indispensable for the functioning of a modern economy, can play a positive role in favor of people, humanity and the planet that hosts it. And this is what Intesa Sanpaolo is achieving”. That’s what the said president of Intesa Sanpaolo, Gian Maria Gros-Pietrospeaking at the international conference organized in the Vatican by Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation to celebrate the 30th anniversary of his birth.
“What struck me the most when reading ‘Fratelli tutti’ – he continued Gros-Pietro – was the consonance between his teachings and the values of Intesa Sanpaolo: integrity, excellence, transparency, respect for diversity, fairness, value of the person. It does not appear easy to transpose the teachings of ‘Fratelli Tutti’ into the daily activity of a large financial institution, subject to legal constraints to protect shareholders, creditors, customers, suppliers, collaborators, to the indications of regulators and supervisors. A great organizational work is therefore necessary to introduce methods that fully pursue the indications of ‘Fratelli Tutti’ into concrete daily operations: it is the change to be achieved. My personal opinion – he added – is that the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation is carrying out, in a highly appreciable way, an absolutely necessary task: the introduction of moral and general considerations in the principles that govern the activity of large companies. Large companies are extraordinarily effective organizations, they have been the great protagonists of the growth of production, in quantity and quality, which has allowed an extraordinary lengthening of the average life, the improvement of health, and has made it possible to support the increase in the world population: from 2.48 billion people in 1950 to over 8 billion at the end of 2022. At the same time they have produced the problems of today’s world: pollution, climate change, the scarcity of some resources, starting from water, an increase in inequalities. To solve these problems, large companies must give themselves socially shared objectives. Political decisions, international agreements will be needed, new standards will have to be defined. And the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation will be able to be a vehicle of ideas and above all of values”.