How we’re ‘walking the talk’ on environmental sustainability

Our purpose is to shape a world where people and communities thrive. We can’t achieve that ambition without serious work with respect to the environment – particularly the impact and footprint of our customers. But action speaks louder than words. We must ‘walk the talk’ by managing our own impact, promoting a culture of sustainability, and above all, working with customers to help and support them to be more sustainable too.

Helping our customers to operate sustainably

We can and should manage our own footprint, from energy usage, water consumption to recycling, but the single biggest impact we can have is through our customers. We’re making sure who we bank and what we finance is driving a just transition to a more sustainable future. For example, that means supporting our larger customers to invest in projects with positive environmental outcomes, including by arranging the largest sustainable loan in the Asia Pacific and supporting Investa Commercial Property Fund build their low carbon commercial property portfolio. We recently issued a $400m green bond for Woolworths to finance low carbon buildings, energy efficiency projects and renewable energy assets for owned and leased Woolworth’s supermarkets across Australia.

We are also in active discussions with our largest corporate customers in carbon-intensive industries as they look at further ways to cut emissions and support the transition to a low carbon economy. We’ve made a public commitment to support our top 100 emitting customers to identify their climate change risks, create transition plans and report publicly on their progress. Of course many of these customers already have well developed plans and are taking action, but our involvement and ability to nudge and reward the right behaviours can have a material impact. For example, we recently worked in partnership with Adelaide Airport to develop Australia’s first sustainability linked loan (SLL). If Adelaide airport demonstrates an improvement on sustainability linked targets, the cost of debt is reduced. That’s a classic ‘win-win’.

A greener physical environment

We also know that better design principles improve the sustainability and affordability of the physical building environment. That’s why we’re supporting and encouraging corporate and retail customers to improve the design and operation of the buildings in which we live, work and play.

Take our work in New Zealand. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has said that New Zealand’s building code is below the standard of other IEA countries which has historically resulted in some of the dampest, coldest houses in the developed world, making them expensive to heat and leading to health impacts for the people living in them. With this challenge in mind, and working with the government, ANZ has developed the Healthy Homes Package. Healthy Homes has three parts: interest-free top up loans to ANZ home loan customers to insulate and heat their homes, discounts on rates and fee waivers for customers whose homes meet Homestar green requirements, and access to apps which allow customers to assess their own energy efficiency.

I am particularly excited to see the passion our customers and our people bring to the challenge of living, working and doing business more sustainably. People are looking for ways to have a positive impact and anything we can do to make it easy has a massive affect. Look at the excitement and engagement we generated when we launched a staff discussion on waste minimisation. I recently received over 80 ‘reuse’ ideas from our staff when I shared my thoughts about this topic on our internal social collaboration platform and many of them are now implemented, from battery recycling to a targeted campaign to reduce and recycle takeaway coffee cups.

We have learned that our people want to do the right thing and if we can make it easy and intuitive, people jump on board. Like all problems, doing business sustainably presents business opportunities as well as challenges.

Since 2017 ANZ, along with  Telstra, Coca Cola Amatil, University of Melbourne and Monash University, entered into a wind farm power purchasing agreement  which, together with our existing solar assets, will provide over a quarter of the energy required to run our Australian operations.

We know this is important because in Australia - research shows residential and commercial buildings consume 60 per cent of all electricity, making them among the highest-emitting assets in the country.

Green ambassadors

After piloting an employee engagement program on sustainability in 2018, we have now expanded the model to our largest 11 markets. Our ‘Green Ambassador’ program raises awareness of environmental issues so our people are empowered to make changes to mitigate their footprint and create solutions to environmental challenges. 

In this spirit, our New Zealand business recently formed a partnership with Sustainable Coastlines providing opportunities for our staff to volunteer on tree planting and beach clean ups. In just one month 1,250 of our people collected more than 10,000 litres of rubbish in 60 beach clean-ups.

As a bank we’re seeing that our people and our customers really care about the impact of their decisions and the decisions made by the bank. Who we bank and how we behave makes a difference. Some in the community believe that corporations should ‘stick to their knitting’. In my mind, being thoughtful and considered in our actions, and consciously shaping a world where people and communities thrive IS ‘sticking to our knitting’. It’s why we exist. As a large organisation, it’s not arrogant to believe that our action, policies and behaviours change our world. I know our people, customers and shareholders want us to use that gift to drive positive change. It’s a responsibility and obligation and makes our business better too. Sustainability is not ‘at the expense’ of the business. It is a fundamental driver of being a better business for all stakeholders.  

You can read more about ANZ’s sustainability work and commitments HERE.