Westpac and sustainability – a historical relationship

Westpac Banking Corporation (Westpac) can lay a claim to Australia’s longest-standing relationship between a financial institution and sustainable behaviour. It is seeking to build on the ties in the modern era.

Can you give a sense of the extent to which consciousness of impact is embedded in Westpac’s DNA?

TOOHILL Westpac is a 201-year-old company and the bank set up its first disaster-relief fund in its first year of existence. The Hawkesbury River flooded in 1817 and Westpac created a fund to support the affected communities. Sustainability has been there from the very start and through time.

I started at Westpac almost six years ago. One of the first things I did was meet with leaders across the business to understand where the organisation was regarding sustainability. What became very apparent is that sustainability is part of who we are. People think about our brand and what this organisation stands for around issues relating to sustainability.

In my role, I am building on the work of many others over a long period of time. I’ve never had to advocate internally why sustainability is important. Rather, my role is about how we create long-term value and how we keep challenging ourselves to be better.

What is Westpac’s approach to impact reporting?

TOOHILL We were the first Australian bank to do sustainability reporting, back in 2002, and our reporting has evolved since then. There has been a shift from sharing stakeholder perspectives, reporting on activity and publishing lists of metrics to understanding the difference we are making. If you have been reporting data points linked to sustainability objectives for a number of years you can demonstrate impact and clear improvement over time.

For example, 71 per cent of our lending to electricity is now to renewables. This has changed significantly – up from 52 per cent back in 2012. It reflects how our climate-change position over the past decade has shaped lending decisions and that we’ve created significant impact as we support Australian businesses through the energy transition.

In this context, I would also highlight the work the bank is doing through the Westpac Foundation. We are now really focused on backing social enterprises that seek to create jobs for vulnerable Australians. We are also tracking the quantity of employment opportunities we have helped create through our backing of social enterprises.

In November 2018, we announced that we are aiming to change 100,000 lives for the better in Australia by 2030. This includes backing social enterprises and helping them scale with the aim of creating 10,000 new jobs and employment pathways.

The 2018 Westpac Foundation impact report includes metrics, stories and social outcomes achieved in the past year.