Westpac Banking Corporation

Sustainability and Community

Environment

Our approach

Our approach

Over the last 20 years we have worked to understand and address our direct and indirect environmental impacts. This has included reducing our greenhouse gas emissions by over 45% by being smarter and more efficient in the way we work. View our environmental track record.

Our policies and frameworks

  • Our Environmental Policy Statement (PDF 19kb) covers the management of our ecological footprint, the measuring and reporting of our performance and the incorporation of environmental considerations into our risk management framework.
  • Our Paper Purchasing Policy (PDF 85kb) puts our principles into practice by outlining the standards by which one of our core resources - paper, is sourced.  It takes into consideration conservation of global resources and the standards of sustainable production we seek of paper providers to the Group.
  • Our Climate Change position statement (PDF 419kb) sets out our perspective on the science, politics, economics and social impacts of climate change; the role of the finance sector in the transition to a low-carbon economy; and our 2009 – 2013 action plan
  • Our major indirect environmental impacts occur through our everyday banking activities. Which is why we factor environmental considerations into our investment and lending decisions through our Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Risk Management Framework. Westpac was one of the founding signatories to the Equator Principles,  focused on managing environmental and social risk in project finance.

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Our commitments

We participate in a number of external initiatives to help improve the environmental performance of business, including:

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Environmental governance

The Board Sustainability Committee oversees management's role in ensuring our environmental commitment is promoted and maintained across the Group.

This is supported by a Sustainability Council, made up of General Managers from across the Group which meets regularly throughout the year.

Divisions with lead responsibility for specific aspects of our environmental activities have additional governance forums in place and regularly update the Sustainability Council, the Executive Team and Board Sustainability Committee.

Our Environmental Management System - based on the international standard ISO14001 - was implemented in 2002 and reviewed in 2006 and environmental considerations are embedded within key decision making processes, including supplier assessment, product development and project funding approval.

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Monitoring and improving performance

We report on, greenhouse gas emissions, travel performance and resource use and  our lending to the energy sector annually through our Sustainability Report.

We believe that you can't manage what you can't measure. That's why we've set clear targets around our environmental performance. Results against these targets are monitored closely and reported publicly each year.

We have participated in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) since it began and have been listed in its Carbon Disclosure Leadership Index for the past seven years, as well as the Carbon Performance Leadership Index introduced in 2010. See our responses to the index:

2011 CDP submission (PDF 345kb)
2010 CDP submission (PDF 381kb)
 2009 CDP submission (PDF 226 kb)
 2008 CDP submission (PDF 212kb)
 2007 CDP submission (PDF 134kb)
 2006 CDP submission (PDF 219kb)
 2005 CDP submission (PDF 226kb)

We also report energy use and energy efficiency opportunities under the Energy Efficiency Opportunities Act 1996. This Act requires Australia’s largest energy using corporations to assess their energy use and improve their energy efficiency over a 5 year cycle. See our Energy Efficiency Opportunity Reports for progress on improving our energy efficiency.

Energy Efficiency Opportunities Report (PDF 484kb)

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Things you should know