Our climate change commitment

Supporting our customers and industries to transition

The most important role we can play in the transition to net zero is to support our customers to reduce emissions and enhance their resilience to a changing climate. To achieve this, we are:

• Executing our environmental sustainability strategy and providing finance, services and advice that support customers to shift to low carbon business models and operations that put them or the broader economy on a path to net zero emissions.
• Funding and facilitating at least A$100 billion by the end of 2030, in social and environmental outcomes through customer activities and direct investments by ANZ. This includes initiatives that help lower carbon emissions, protect nature and biodiversity, increase access to affordable housing and promote financial wellbeing¹.
• Progressively deepening our employees’ understanding of climate risks and opportunities, including the potential of emerging technologies, focusing on our institutional bankers in key customer segments such as resources, energy and agribusiness.

This expertise will help us develop products and services to meet our customers’ needs, for example in:

• Green, social and sustainability-linked loans and bonds
• Lending and advisory services to help our customers buy, sell and raise capital for renewable energy and other low-emissions projects
• Project finance to support the development of long-term sustainable infrastructure.

Transition our lending to net zero financed emissions by 2050 in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement

Our success in supporting and accelerating a net zero transition by 2050 will be driven by our ability to help our customers reduce their emissions.

To reduce our portfolio emissions, we commit to transitioning our lending in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement. Our work in this area is focused on developing metrics and interim targets² for key sectors by the end of 2024, in line with our NZBA commitment and the evolution of globally recognised standards and methodologies, noting there is no single method that covers all relevant sectors and asset classes.

To decrease our portfolio emissions, we are focusing our efforts on high-emitting sectors, such as the energy sector³ which plays a key role in the transition, with around 75% of global emissions attributed to energy use⁴. This is especially the case for the power generation sector which is essential in decarbonising other high emitting sectors such as transportation and buildings.

To achieve this, we seek to:

• Continue to improve the management of climate-related risks within our risk management framework. This includes factoring climate-related risk into our lending for large business customers⁵,⁶ primarily by assessing their capacity to respond to climate change and the evolving regulatory landscape. We undertake customer due diligence through application of tools under our Social and Environmental Risk Policy (Policy) and Requirements for lending to ‘sensitive sectors’,⁷ including the Climate Change Risk Assessment tool used to help guide our engagement with customers and assess and manage climate-related risks.
• Expect our existing large business customers in higher-emitting sectors such as energy, building products and transport to integrate climate change risk into their company strategies. 

We may decline lending and/or reduce our exposure to projects and customers – new or existing – that do not meet our expectations.

Engaging constructively and transparently with stakeholders

• We recognise it is vital to work collaboratively with our stakeholders to help support the transition to net zero emissions. That’s why we are:
  • Focusing our engagement and raised expectations on our 100 largest emitting customers with the aim that by end 2025, compared with their starting point more customers achieve a ‘well developed’ or ‘advanced’ rating for their low carbon transition plans;
  • Extending the use of our Climate Change Risk Assessment methodology so that by end 2024 it has been used to support our engagement with each of our 100 largest emitting customers.
• Enhancing our management of climate risks and opportunities by intensifying our engagement with our largest emitting business customers. We will expect and encourage them to strengthen their low carbon transition plans, by:
• Engaging with stakeholders on climate change and increasing our transparency on our approach through Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) market briefings, investor roundtables and other avenues⁸.
• Disclose how we identify, assess and manage climate-related financial risks and opportunities informed by the TCFD and in line with climate reporting requirements as they develop across the jurisdictions in which we operate.
• Disclosing metrics on the emissions impact of our financing and setting targets to reduce this impact.
• Engaging with regulators, where appropriate, to enhance our alignment with regulatory expectations.
• Engaging, as appropriate, in public policy discussion on climate change and increasing transparency on our approach. This includes disclosing the key industry associations we are members of and reviewing alignment on key relevant policy positions.