being a responsible company Doing the right thing
We maintain a strong conduct framework and invest in our people to deliver fair outcomes for all our stakeholders
How we do business Being a responsible company means making the right decisions
We strive to be a more responsible bank, underpinned by strong processes throughout our organisation. We're determined to fight financial crime, minimise our environmental impact, invest in our people and embed our values across our business in the markets where we operate.
Our people
Our workforce is diverse and inclusive and highly motivated to do the right thing for all our stakeholders. We take enormous pride in helping each and every one of our employees to fulfil their potential. That’s why we continue to deliver comprehensive employee learning programmes, while making available more than 50 local employee resource groups that connect and support colleagues.
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The environment We want to minimise our impact on the environment
We’ve set a target to be net zero in our operations by 2025. In 2021, we expanded our carbon offsetting remit to offset all residual emissions to include Scope 1 and 2, Scope 3 flights, waste and data centres. View our interim targets and progress below.
We aim to minimise the environmental impact of our operations. Through our Sustainability Aspirations, we have set ambitious targets to achieve net zero emissions and only use renewable energy sources by 2025 and we are making great progress to meet these challenging targets. In 2021 energy and emissions reductions initiatives included clean-power purchase agreements, water recycling, solar rooftops and on-site waste composting. Together with a 5 per cent reduction in our real-estate portfolio, these direct initiatives reduced our CO2 emissions by 27 per cent year-on-year, and our energy consumption by 15 per cent to 183 GWh. Investment in energy-efficient products accounted for 11 GWh of this reduction, resulting in a more efficient and lower-carbon portfolio.
Water availability remains a growing challenge in many of our markets. Although we did not face any issues sourcing potable water in 2021, we continue to take a sustainable and responsible approach to managing water across the Group and have improved measurement of the portfolio by 10 per cent.
We continue to drive emission reductions towards our targets and with the backdrop of COVID-19 our scope three air travel emissions continued to be dramatically lower than expected. While travel is expected to rise in 2022, we have continued to set targets for reduction against our 2019 baseline. Flight emissions reduced 96% from 2019’s baseline, far exceeding the target. In 2022, we aim to achieve and maintain flight emissions 28% lower than our 2019 baseline of 94,000 tonnes.
Our reporting criteria sets out the principles and methodology used to calculate our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions while third-party assurer, Global Documentation, provides independent assurance of our Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions, and our waste and water data, to ensure the accuracy and credibility of our reporting. In 2021 we brought forward to December 2025 our ambition to achieve net zero GHG emissions in our operations.
Governance A strong culture
We work hard to promote good principles and valued behaviours across our organisation. For us, good governance is about having the right culture, structures and processes.
Financial crime prevention
Financial crime, such as bribery, corruption and money laundering, hinders economic progress and harms communities. We are strengthening our Financial Crime Compliance standards by improving our financial crime controls, training our colleagues and sharing best practice with our clients and partners.
Responsible selling and marketing
We want our clients to have the best possible experience when they bank with us, and to feel supported. That's why we have robust policies and procedures in place to help us identify and resolve any complaint. We aim to treat our clients fairly at all times, providing them with solutions that meet their evolving needs.
Our suppliers
We work with our suppliers to uphold global environmental and social standards. Our supplier charter sets out what we expect of our suppliers. We seek to ensure that modern slavery does not exist in our operations or supply chain.
More on our approach to banking
We’re committed to promoting social and economic development in our markets through our core business of banking