REG-VK Company VK Company: VK publishes ESG report for 2021

VKAnnouncement

15/08/2022 08:15

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   VK Company (VKCO)
   VK Company: VK publishes ESG report for 2021

   15-Aug-2022 / 10:00 MSK
   Dissemination of a Regulatory Announcement that contains inside
   information in accordance with the Market Abuse Regulation (MAR),
   transmitted by EQS Group.
   The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

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   August 15, 2022

         

                        VK publishes ESG report for 2021

                                        

   VK Company Limited (LSE, MOEX: VKCO, hereinafter referred as “VK” or  “the
   Company”) is publishing its annual ESG 1  report for 2021. The Company has
   launched its own  2 ESG  portal (in Russian) covering  the key events  and
   news related to the  environmental, social and  governance aspects of  its
   sustainable development of the past year.

    

   "VK's  strategic  goal  is  to  make  people's  lives  more   comfortable,
   convenient and  secure thanks  to  our digital  services. We  pay  special
   attention to  cybersecurity,  personal  data protection  and  the  overall
   quality of  our  services.  We  are  also  proactively  developing  online
   education in order to provide the greatest range of opportunities for  our
   users,” said Vladimir Kirienko, CEO of VK (Russia). “A major focus of VK's
   development is  to help  society, business,  and the  government in  their
   digital transformation. While  developing technologies  and launching  new
   products, we strive to minimize our ecological footprint. We believe  that
   the  principles  of  sustainable  development  which  are   systematically
   integrated into our strategy have a positive impact on the key aspects  of
   our  business:  creation  and  development  of  unique  digital  services,
   expansion of our audience, improvement of user experience for people  with
   different needs and capabilities, the well-being of our employees, as well
   as business and society as a whole.”

    

   Annual ESG report highlights:

    

   Environmental aspects:

    

     • More than 3,000 of VK employees started using our Electronic  Document
       Management System (28% of total staff) 3  1 
     • The number of donations for ecology-related projects on Dobro  Mail.ru
       increased by 61% year-on-year
     • The average annual  PUE 4  2  of a  M-100 data center  using a  liquid
       cooling system was registered at 1.04

    

   Social aspects:

    

     • Charitable donations by VK staff and VK users totaled RUB 188 million,
       up 30% year-on-year
     • The coverage  of  VK’s Day  Against  Cyberbullying event  reached  130
       million views
     • The share of women  among top managers and  team leaders reached  28%,
       while the share  of women among  all hired employees  stood at 35%  in
       2021

    

   Corporate governance:

    

     • The average response time of the VKontakte moderation team came in  at
       1.3 minutes
     • In 2021 the Company received no substantiated reports of ethical norms
       violations

     • The  share  of  women  on  the  Board  of  Directors  of  VK   reached
       30% 5 [ 6 3].

    

   In 2021, VK  conducted surveys to  determine the company's  sustainability
   goals and  priorities.  Surveys  were conducted  among  users,  employees,
   shareholders, business  partners and  NGO  communities. According  to  the
   results of  the  surveys,  material topics  were  identified  as  follows:
   personal  data   protection,  cybersecurity,   online  education,   social
   initiatives,  innovations   and   digitalization,  and   product   quality
   responsibility.

    

   In  each  area   of  sustainable  development,   the  company   implements
   initiatives and projects designed to make the lives of users and employees
   safer and more convenient.

    

   In the domain of cybersecurity and personal data protection, in Q4 2021 VK
   launched the  VK  Protect  initiative which  combines  all  the  technical
   solutions that  provide  protection  within  the  VK  ecosystem.  We  also
   launched the Security  Management Center to  boost the security  of VK  ID
   user accounts.

    

   VK implements  initiatives  in education,  offering  a range  of  free  VK
   Education projects  for  audiences  of  all  ages,  from  preschoolers  to
   professionals. In  2021  our career  guidance  campaign IT  Knowledge  Day
   focusing on  video game  development brought  together more  than  290,000
   children from 5,700  schools, with  more than 3  million viewers  watching
   online. More than 3,500 students from 13 of Russia’s leading  universities
   took part in VK’s educational programs and workshops.

    

   VK supports  multiple  social initiatives.  More  than 1.5  million  users
   visited the Dobro Mail.ru’s  website in 2021, donating  more than RUB  110
   million to partner funds and  bringing the number of recurring  charitable
   donations to  19,000  for  the  year.  VK  continued  developing  its  own
   charitable fund “Kod Dobra”, which raised RUB 96 million for NGOs in 2021.
   VK supported  more than  120  social NGOs  in  2021, offering  grants  for
   advertising campaigns  and assistance  in  their implementation.  For  the
   third year  in a  row, VK  held  its Day  Against Cyberbullying  in  2021,
   garnering support  of more  than  70 brands  and doubling  the  campaign’s
   coverage year-on-year to 130 million views.

    

   Environmental initiatives  are also  very  important for  VK. In  2020  we
   devoted a  separate  segment to  ecology  projects on  the  Dobro  Mail.ru
   website, and in 2021 managed to  raise RUB 3.2 million for ecology,  which
   is 61% more than in 2020. In  the summer of 2021, Dobro Mail.ru teamed  up
   with the WWF  to raise  more than RUB  500,000 for  fighting wildfires  in
   Yakutia and RUB  200,000 for a  Greenpeace project to  start a new  forest
   nursery in the Kaluga region. Thanks to the support of Dobro Mail.ru  (RUB
   300,000) the Delpha Foundation managed to staff dolphin assistance  teams.
   BIT.GAMES studio supported its local eco community ECOVES and helped clean
   up the territory around the Sursk reservoir in the Penza region.

    

   About the ESG report:

    

   The  report  is  published  in   Russian  and  English.  Qualitative   and
   quantitative data in  the report  adheres to  The International  Reporting
   Standards (GRI) and Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB).  The
   Task Force on the Disclosure  of Financial Information Related to  Climate
   Change (TCFD) was used as a framework for ESG Risks disclosure.

    

   For further information please contact:

    

   Investors

   Tatiana Volochkovich
   Phone: +7 495 725 6357 ext.: 3434
   Email:  7 t.volochkovich@vk.team

    

   ESG

   Kseniia Toporkova
   Mobile: +7 926 838 70 89
   Email: k.toporkova@vk.team

    

   Press

   Sergey Makarov
   Mobile: +7 926 818 95 89
   Email:  8 se.makarov@vk.team

    

    About VK

   VK is one of Russia’s largest tech giants. VK’s products and services help
   millions of people with their daily needs online. More than 90% of Russian
   internet users rely  on VK  for communication, video  games, learning  new
   skills, listening to music, watching and making videos, selling and buying
   wares, ordering food, and much more. The Company also develops a range  of
   products and services  for the digitalization  of business processes  from
   online promotion to predictive analytics, corporate social networks, cloud
   services and business automation. 

    

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    9  1  As of the end of Q2 2022

    10  2  PUE is a coefficient that describes how efficiently a data center
   uses energy; in particular, how much energy is used by computing equipment

    11  3  By the end of Q2 2022

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   ISIN:          US5603172082
   Category Code: MSCH
   TIDM:          VKCO
   LEI Code:      2138009IXUP41SPL5B50
   Sequence No.:  181215
   EQS News ID:   1420005


    
   End of Announcement EQS News Service

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