Lowering the intensity on carbon

But according to the bank’s Head of Institutional, Graham Turley, that is increasingly more about working with customers and industry than what the bank itself can do.

“How can we help our customers to adjust to this changing world where consumers and communities are actually demanding change?” - Turley

“How can we help our customers to adjust to this changing world where consumers and communities are actually demanding change now and adjustments for climate change?” he asks in a podcast with bluenotes.

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While ANZ has been carbon neutral since 2010, the bank has also begun work to encourage and support 100 of its highest-emitting business customers to identify their climate change risks, create low carbon transition plans and report publicly on their progress.

The bank is funding and facilitating $A15 billion of investment by 2020 to help customers lower carbon emissions through renewable energy and battery storage, increased energy efficiency, low emissions transport, green buildings, reforestation, emerging technologies (like carbon capture and storage) and climate change adaptation measures.

“(It’s a question) as to how do we work, how do we use our expertise or how do we use the knowledge we learn off other customers to support our customers to make that adjustment? So we're all successful and there’s a better future for all of us,” Turley says.

He accepts that climate change response was originally driven by a range of non-government organisation (NGOs) but now the business drivers are clearer, reflecting a generalised concern in industry and the community about the potential implications of climate change.

“(Companies) are adapting their business strategies and that has actually been driven by the really key stakeholders being the consumers, the customers, the workers and the communities… their stakeholders and their shareholders,” Turley says.

ANZ is hardly alone: global companies like the world’s biggest miner, BHP, have articulated similar intentions.

To hear the full discussion, listen to the podcast above.

Andrew Cornell is managing editor of bluenotes