Back to: Environment impacts and issues

The United Nations predicts that by 2025, 5 billion of the world's 7.9 billion people will live in areas where the supply of water is scarce and one third will not have access to adequate drinking water. We believe that water scarcity and security is one of the biggest environmental issues now and into the foreseeable future. We are therefore committed to:

1. Reducing water consumption associated with our own operations;
2. Supporting 'market-based' water rights trading systems;
3. Participating in discussions on water management and helping to facilitate changes arising from water reform initiatives; and
4. Better understanding water-related risks and opportunities in our portfolio, and across the communities in which we operate.

Westpac was the first bank globally and the first Australian company to sign the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) CEO Water Mandate. The Mandate is an international project driven by the UNGC to develop positive strategies and solutions for the emerging global water crisis. Westpac was represented at the inaugural working conference of The CEO Water Mandate in March 2008, convened by the UNGC in partnership with the Pacific Institute. The conference, held at UN Headquarters in New York, brought together senior representatives from numerous corporations, as well as policy leaders from civil society organizations, UN agencies as well as specialized water institutes.

We continue to support the Water Stewardship Initiative, which has emerged in response to Australia's urgent need for better definition and recognition of socially, economically, and environmentally responsible freshwater usage. More recent work has focused on reviewing existing standards and approaches from a wide variety of stewardship and 'eco-label' schemes, as the basis for further development of draft water stewardship principles and criteria. The goal for 2008 is to extend an options paper to review potential approaches to governance, verification, and branding, and to hold the third Water Stewardship Forum.

We participated in 2007 in the water workstream of UNEP FI and contributed to their 'Half full or half empty?' report exploring water related risks and opportunities for financial institutions. We also participate in the Australian Bankers' Association working group on water issues and the finance sector. Westpac is also a founding member of the Agricultural Alliance on Climate Change which, in 2007, commissioned research from CSIRO to examine how rural communities can promote climate change resilience.

We provide a range of solutions for retail customers to support their own efforts in reducing water consumption, including discounts and redemptions on rainwater tanks and other water saving devices, through our home loan and credit card solutions. We recognise the impact that adverse weather conditions driven by climate change can have on our stakeholders and we are involved in a number of initiatives to address and provide support to those affected - from drought relief solutions for agribusiness to financial support for access to clean and safe drinking water in rural areas of Fiji.

We continue to look for opportunities to improve water efficiency across our property portfolio. For example, our Sydney headquarters – Westpac Place – utilises a stormwater harvesting system which collects rain water run off and re-uses it in the air-conditioning system cooling towers to replenish cooling water lost through evaporation.
Following ongoing issues with the collection of water data over recent years, in 2007 we held roundtable discussions with key suppliers. These discussions resulted in improved water data, included in our 2007 Stakeholder Impact Report, which will form the baseline for ongoing reporting.