Urban sustainability

Our approach

Improving urban sustainability is an important priority for our customers and communities wherever we operate. Increasingly, we live in urban centres faced with growing congestion, air quality and sanitation challenges.

ANZ seeks to better understand social and environmental pressures and to identify what we can do in our workplaces and branches to help minimise our environmental impact. We also actively support our customers and suppliers ( through our responsible sourcing program) to deliver sound environmental and social outcomes.

2012 targets

Each year we set public targets and report progress on a business-wide program of work to advance environmental sustainability. These targets are:

  • Maintain carbon neutrality across our global operations.
  • Deliver on our three year (2014) targets in Australia and New Zealand for reductions per FTE in:
    • Greenhouse gas emissions
    • Premises energy
    • Paper (office and customer)
    • Commercial waste
    • Water
  • Evaluate the pilot of our revised Environmental Management System and expand to cover two material markets in our Asian business.
  • View a full description of our urban sustainability targets

About our flagship initiatives

Moving towards a lower-carbon economy

We aim to demonstrate leadership in moving society towards a lower-carbon economy. Our approach is three-fold: achieving carbon neutrality for our operations; investing in renewable energy sources; and helping customers to access products and service that will assist in transitioning to a lower-carbon economy.
Sharing best practice

We are playing an active role in facilitating and sharing best practice to assist in the advancement of urban sustainability. In particular, we are sharing our knowledge and expertise in sustainable building design to industry and our peers.
Reducing our environmental footprint

We are committed to actively managing the environmental impact of our activities. As part of this commitment, we set clear, measurable targets to reduce our consumption of electricity, water and paper, our greenhouse gas emissions, and the amount of waste we send to landfill.
Helping our suppliers to reduce their environmental footprint

We actively engage with our suppliers to help to address and minimise social and environmental impacts in our supply chain. Our Supplier Code of Practice aims to improve the environmental and social performance, and reduce the environmental and social risks associated with our procurement activities.

 

2011 highlights

  • We are one of only fifteen Australian companies to achieve carbon neutrality following certification by Low Carbon Australia that our Australian operations are in line with the government’s National Carbon Offset Standard (NCOS). We also apply the NCOS framework to our global carbon footprint and offset these emissions accordingly.
  • Investment and a strong focus on efficiency improvements has led to a 12% reduction in energy use in our commercial buildings in 2011 compared with 2009.
  • In 2011, we upgraded the building management control system and the thermal metering at our 55 Collins Street offices in Melbourne to align the building with the requirements of National Built Environment Rating System (NABERS) Energy rating for office premises and enable better control for energy efficiency.
  • The design for our new office building in Sydney has been awarded a ‘6 Star Green Star’ Design rating from the Green Building Council of Australia.
  • Our new Singapore office has been awarded Singapore’s highest environmental rating, ‘Green Mark Platinum’.
  • We continue to improve the environmental credentials of branches in our Australian network as we integrate a range of environmental initiatives as part of our rolling refurbishment program.
  • We have reduced our fresh water use in our Dockland’s headquarters by more than 30% through the operation of the onsite blackwater treatment plant.
  • We engaged with researchers at the Centre for Design at RMIT University to understand how we can implement practical solutions to reduce growth in air travel as a result of our expansion across the Asia Pacific region.
  • We were named Australia’s greenest bank in Bloomberg’s World’s Greenest Banks list and we were the only Australian bank listed in the top 20. The Bloomberg list ranks banks based on their efforts to reduce emissions, promote energy efficiency, cut water consumption and capture revenue opportunities through direct and indirect investments in clean energy.

 

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