Big Four Banks: Who drives sustainability in the banking sector
How are Australia’s banks doing on sustainability?
In this scorecard we take a look at Australia’s big four banks to ask: Is the banking sector doing enough?
NAB, the highest scorer of the big 4 banks
Over a year on from the banking royal commission which questioned the conduct, culture, governance and renumeration within the big 4 banks, it is prudent to examine how the banks fare on ESG factors (Enviromental Social Governance). One way to measure this is to assess the bank’s sustainability score, in terms of it’s contribution to meeting the multifaceted global sustainable development goals.
Notably all four of the big 4 Australian banks scored below the Sustainable Platform database (over 17,000+ companies) average score of 52.
The best performer in terms of sustainability contribution is NAB, with a score of 49.
Trailing NAB is CBA (22), followed by ANZ (18) and finally WESTPAC (14).
Both CBA and ANZ would contribute more to the SDGs if it weren't for their significant fossil fuels exposure. In addition to this, ANZ also has controversial industry exposure, with the Sustainable Platform data analysis detecting involvement in defense contractors.
WESTPAC is actually the 'cleanest' of the bunch, recording 0 controversial industry exposure at all (including fossil fuels). Why doesn't WBC then score higher overall? It doesn't contribute as much to housing as the others. On top of this, WESTPAC score was impacted from their breach of anti-money laundering laws in a case being brought by financial crimes regulator AUSTRAC. (Sustainable Platform data takes into consideration corporate fines brought against the company, and WBC’s score is a reflection of this).
In summary: All 4 big banks show room for improvement in the area of sustainability. In a post royal commission world, an improvement on this front may be one way the banks can regain consumer trust.
*All SDG score and data are provided by Sustainable Platform based on data as at 30 April 2020.
Top contributing goals
Housing related products and services contribute the most to targets within SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities. The second highest SDG contribution is to SDG 1: No Poverty.
SDG 1: No Poverty
SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities
Find outmore about the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
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