Westpac reveals green credentials
Westpac Group has directed a significant budget towards what it is describing as its "2017 sustainability strategy".
It said the strategy was aimed at targeting demographic and cultural change, economic solutions for environmental challenges and identifying new avenues of wealth creation.
Announcing the initiative this week, Westpac Group executive Christine Parker said the bank wanted to set big targets and "raise awareness of these issues and challenge everybody to do more".
"We have been working towards our sustainability goals over the past 15 years and I'm proud of what we've achieved," Ms Parker said.
"We want to do more than simply sustain the status quo; we want to create a better future."
The group's announcement said that while the environment and the economy were often seen at odds, Westpac's focus would be on providing innovative solutions to help customers manage environmental outcome issues, and providing specific support for the CleanTech and environmental services sector.
It outlined the highlights of the program as including:
- Making $6 billion dollars available for lending and investment to the CleanTech and environmental services sector;
- Becoming carbon-neutral over the life of the strategy and continuing to drive improvement in Westpac's environment footprint;
- Developing and providing a range of financial advice solutions for all Australians in a way which best suits their needs and circumstances and increases Westpac's capacity, growing the number of planners; and
- Providing access to basic and affordable banking to an additional 300,000 Pacific Islanders, with the aspiration that 50 per cent of these will be women.
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