Managing Sustainability

This year the impacts of the financial crisis and the challenges of moving to a low-carbon economy have again shown that sustainability issues are, in many cases, simply fundamental issues for our business and our customers. Over time, risk, strategy and sustainability will be increasingly linked – and this is the thinking behind our first integrated report.

Indeed, being a global leader in sustainability is one of our key strategic goals for The Westpac Group. Sustainability is fundamental to delivering our overall strategy – of building advocacy, and truly earning all of our customers’ business.

An immediate priority this year has been to help customers experiencing hardship. The expansion of Assist, our support for financial counsellors, and our commitment to equipping customers and the community with financial know-how have all been important measures, discussed at length at the Board Sustainability Committee.

We’ve made good progress during the year in making sustainability more tangible to our customers and employees. I’m pleased that, with over a decade of thinking about, and responding to these new issues, we are well placed to actively share this experience with customers.

Much of our work to date has been behind the scenes, embedding our sustainability thinking into key processes, such as product development. We are now seeing some positive outcomes, for example, our involvement in the Federal Government’s green loan program, the launch of the innovative SENSE savings product in St.George and BankSA, and our ongoing work with institutional clients on carbon risks and opportunities.

Over the next period, we remain committed to further developing the foundations of our governance and risk frameworks, including the development of a consistent framework for environmental, social and governance credit risk analysis, as well as finalising a governance process to ensure the implementation of the UN Principles for Responsible Investment.

Moving forward, we have the benefit of Group-wide support for our five-year sustainability plan. The rollout of ‘Our Tomorrow’, our employee sustainability program, was an important step to engage our people on these objectives and to tap into their enthusiasm and expertise.

For The Westpac Group, sustainability is deeply embedded in our culture. We have a strong history of supporting communities, of doing the right thing – because it is the right thing to do. We have a proud record of international recognition for our efforts in this area, but we recognise that ultimately we will be measured by our actions, in the eyes of our customers, and the communities we serve. We are clear about our goals, and about our progress against the objectives we have set.

GAIL KELLY
Chief Executive Officer