Social responsibility

Being socially responsible is who we are, and it’s built into every aspect of our organisation.

Socially responsible banking approach

Being socially responsible is not just part of our business, it is how we do business. By using the term ‘Social Responsibility’, we mean all ethical, social and environmental responsibilities.

  • Our approach is built in, not bolted on

    Being socially responsible is not just part of our business, it is how we do business. By using the term "social responsibility," we mean all ethical, social and environmental responsibilities.

    There are six fundamentals at our bank:

    1. Our purpose, mission and values – what we do and why we exist
    2. Our culture and history – how we do things and have done so for over 50 years
    3. Our legal structure, as set out in our Constitution
    4. Our business model of mutual banking
    5. Our policies, practises and procedures - how things get done
    6. Our five focus areas of Sustainable Business Practices, Members, Community, Employees and Environment

    Our purpose

    1. Leadership. The Bank strives for excellence and international leadership in its business practices and its mission states that 'the Bank will operate in an ethically, socially and environmentally responsible manner.'
    2. Member owned bank. We are owned by, and run for the benefit of our members. As our members own the organisation, there is no trade-off between shareholders and members. Every member has one equal vote and one share in the business.
    3. Member funding. The foundation of our banking model is to use deposits of members and customers to provide credit to members.
    4. Profit for purpose. Part of our income is returned to serve members and the community, create better products and services and invest in social, and environmental programmes.
    5. Socially responsible banking. The Bank operates under distinctive socially responsible strategies, standards and practices. These are written in our Constitution, in our member-owned structure, and in our focus on personal, not business banking.
    6. Values based banking. As a member of the Global Alliance on Banking on Values (GABV), we adhere to its Principles of Values-based banking, which establishes a triple bottom line approach at the heart of the business model.
    7. History. A socially responsible and service culture has been integral to the Bank’s operations since our founding in 1966.

    Our practices

    8. Reporting and transparency. We have aligned policies, practices and procedures with international best practice standards to ensure they are robust, integrated and transparent.
    9. Verification. We undertake external, independent third party verification to provide evidence and results of our commitments and performance over time. External review tests and validates data, systems and processes across hundreds of metrics.
    10. Global benchmarking. We measure ourselves against world leading standards and companies.
    11. CSR policy. Our social responsibility practices are enshrined in the policy which details how we deliver on our responsibilities and commitments across 200+ actions.
    12. Social responsibility lending exclusions.These apply where the 'primary purpose of the entity or business is alcohol, armaments, correctional facilities, cryptocurrency, deforestation or gross environmental degradation, gambling, military activities, political activities, pornography, slavery, tobacco or uranium.'
    13. Fossil fuel exclusions. The Bank does not use members' deposits to directly lend to, buy equity or debt in, any large-scale greenhouse polluting activities from fossil fuel exploration, extraction, production and use. This is written in our Treasury Credit Risk and Lending Risk Policy.
    14. Supply chain. We mandate and embed sustainability in our supply chain Vendor Management Framework.
    15. No political donations. We do not donate, give gifts or employee or management time, to support political candidates or political organisations.

    Proof points

    16. Certified responsible investment. All new retail mortgage and deposit products sold by the Bank are certified by the Responsible Investment Association Australasia (RIAA)1.
    17. Certified ethical investment. The Bank’s $1 billion Debt Issuance Programme (DIP) for wholesale investors is a Certified Ethical Investment by the RIAA. The cash proceeds raised are used to fund the Bank’s balance sheet2.
    18. One of the World's Most Ethical Companies. The Bank has been named as One of the World’s Most’ Ethical Companies each year from 2014-20193.
    19. Results. We measure and report on our performance against 85 targets and KPIs year on year in our Annual Report.
    20. Social responsibility performance results. We publish 45 results from external, independent organisations over the past six years. These benchmarks highlight our consistency and excellence in best-practice corporate social responsibility.
    21. Global community investment. We target global leadership in community investment and invest 6.8% of net profits before tax in the community, as measured by the LBG Benchmark4.
    22. Gender equality. For the 4th year, the Bank is one of only 140 Australian companies noted as a 2019 Employer of Choice for Gender Equality, by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency5. We exceed the ASX average of the percentage of females at all leadership levels; 44% of our Board members, 29% of our Executive team and 39% of Management were women.