Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou mō ngā pānui tohutohu whakaoranga nei
In a world of accelerating change and disruption, we are facing a startling array of challenges in our business and our society. Climate change, the distribution of economic outcomes, digital disruption and the future of work, environmental quality and use of natural resources, to name a few. These challenges create risks and opportunities, both for our business and New Zealand. We’re committed to playing a role in tackling these challenges: not only to ensure the survival of our business today, but to ensure we’re responding to the challenges of tomorrow; and not only the challenges that directly and immediately impact our business, but the wider challenges that impact the wellbeing of all of our employees, our customers and New Zealanders. Why? Put simply, if New Zealand thrives, we thrive.
I truly believe business should be a positive force in society – at a basic level, businesses create jobs and pay tax without which modern society couldn’t exist. Businesses should also try to solve customer problems and bring resources and a different lens to the challenges we face. Businesses should create value for customers, shareholders and the communities we live in. Those ideas sit at the heart of our sustainability strategy and align with the purpose of Westpac New Zealand - helping our customers financially, to grow a better New Zealand.
Our 2020 sustainability strategy focuses on three areas aligned to our purpose and our ability to influence change. They are: Growing New Zealanders’ Financial Wellbeing; Taking Action on Climate Change, and Being a Responsible Business.
In the past year there have been numerous highlights and challenges. Our employees have supported financial wellbeing by delivering free financial capability workshops to 5,260 New Zealanders. And, importantly, we are looking at how we can raise our customers’ financial wellbeing through everyday banking interactions. We offer our customers options to monitor and understand their spending habits in real-time and we are offering customers more data driven insights into their banking activity, and options that might save them cost, or better meet their needs.
However, while improving financial capability and New Zealanders' confidence with their money is hugely important, if we want to truly lift financial wellbeing we also need to help more New Zealanders be financially independent – through lifting incomes, tackling the drivers of poverty and ensuring everyone can participate in and benefit from our economy. We recognise that stable, affordable housing is a key enabler of these goals, so it’s been pleasing to see an expansion of the ways we are helping lower income New Zealanders into homes, through Welcome Home Loans, shared equity schemes and continued lending and support to the community housing sector.
However affordable housing and financial inclusion remain a huge challenge and will continue to be a focus in 2019.
On the environmental front, we’ve again reduced our electricity use, although our overall emissions have increased due to the higher emissions intensity of the electricity grid. However we remain on track for our targeted 25% reduction between 2016 and 2020. We have introduced 69 electric vehicles to our fleet and will have 100 by early next year.
We’ve introduced 30 worm farms to our Auckland headquarters that process around 20,000kg of waste on site, and feed a collection of thriving onsite herb gardens. We’ve increased our lending to businesses supporting the transition to a net zero carbon economy to $1.6 billion.
We’ve also used our economic perspective as a bank to publish evidence-based reports calling for New Zealand to move faster on climate change, and for businesses to get better business outcomes and address the pay gap by getting to 50% women in management. We want to use our expertise to show how doing the right thing can also bring benefits to New Zealand and individual businesses’ bottom lines.
It’s great to reflect on highlights, but with that comes the realisation that we are only scratching the surface of many of the big challenges we face. That’s why collaboration and collective action are vital – from business, government, NGOs and individuals. In the past year we were a founding member of the Climate Leaders Coalition, we’re co-chairing the Sustainable Finance stream of the Aotearoa Circle and supported the Financial Inclusion Forum for the banking and finance industries. All of these initiatives have a greater chance of achieving results than anyone working alone. From a Westpac perspective, working with others is also a great opportunity to widen our horizons and learn.
Finally, I’d like to thank our Sustainability Advisory Panel for their help and scrutiny throughout the year. Listening and responding to our stakeholders – customers, shareholders, employees and communities - is important to us. Sometimes this will create tension and debate; however, this dialogue is vital to our ongoing success and innovation. The input we’ve received this year has been invaluable. To assist us further on this journey I welcome your feedback.
Noho ora mai
David McLean
Chief Executive Officer
Westpac New Zealand
To assist us on our sustainability journey and to ensure we are sufficiently challenged by representatives of our communities we established an eight-member Sustainability Advisory Panel.
The panel’s role, as a ‘critical friend’ of the bank is to provide an external perspective on Westpac New Zealand’s sustainability strategy (and indeed the overall bank strategy which it supports), to challenge Westpac to demonstrate leadership in sustainable business practices, and to champion robust and transparent reporting and communication.
This year we have continued our support of the strategy and provided input into the three core focus areas; helping New Zealanders take action on climate change; grow New Zealanders' financial wellbeing; and be a responsible business.
While some might think these as unusual areas for a bank to focus on, they clearly support the overall bank strategy of ‘helping New Zealanders financially, to grow a better New Zealand’. In the long-term successful business can only succeed in a society that succeeds and that will mean it has responded to these major challenges. A major bank, such as Westpac, has significant influence and leverage though its suppliers and customers. More than this is it can take a leadership role in its communities. It is pleasing to see Westpac rising to these challenges as is well described in this report.
The journey has barely started in many areas and the challenges are immense. As a panel we are pleased to be able to play a constructive role in helping shape the bank's response.
During the year three panel members, Sir Mason Durie, Dr Monique Faleafa and Dr Renee Liang, have retired and I would like to thank them for their great contribution. New members have joined, Dr Jan Wright, Rangimarie Hunia and Emeline Afeaki-Mafile’o, and I thank them for their commitment. I also record my appreciation of the contribution and wisdom of all panel members and the support of the Westpac sustainability team.
Chair
The Westpac NZ Sustainability Advisory Panel is chaired by Nick Main and includes Emeline Afeaki-Mafile'o, Sir Rob Fenwick, Rangimarie Hunia, Sam Johnson, Anne Norman, Phil O'Reilly and Dr Jan Wright.
Nick Main (Chair) is a chartered accountant and was CEO and later Chairman of Deloitte in New Zealand. More recently, he was Global Managing Partner of Sustainability and Climate Change Services and has also served as Deloitte's Global Chief of Ethics Officer. Nick currently chairs the Middlemore Foundation, is Deputy Chair of NIWA and is a board member of the Sir Peter Blake Trust. Nick has also held a number of high profile positions, including chair of the New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development and deputy chair of the New Zealand Leadership Institute.
Emeline Afeaki-Mafile’o, MNZM founded Affirming Works in 2001, which uses a Pacific model of collective mentoring to provide life skills to young people in Auckland. It has mentored over 8000 children, youth and their families. This work led to the establishment of Fofola Consultancy Ltd, which has contributed to public policy development in New Zealand and the Pacific.
With her husband Alipate, Emeline owns Tupu'anga Coffee, which harvests, roasts and packages in the Kingdom of Tonga, supplies local establishments, and exports to New Zealand. The couple also started the social enterprise, Community Café, in Mangere and Otahuhu.
In 2006, Emeline was named as a Sir Peter Blake Emerging Leader and won the Westpac Woman of Influence award in 2014. She was also selected by the Tindall Foundation as a member of the New Zealand Social Entrepreneur Fellowship.
Businessman, environmentalist and professional director, Sir Rob is a respected advocate for sustainability in both public and private sectors. He has started several successful businesses including municipal composting operation Living Earth Ltd and Waiheke Island based Te Matuku Oysters Ltd.
In addition to his role at Westpac, Sir Rob sits on sustainability advisory panels for Air New Zealand, Waste Management NZ and Fonterra which he chairs. He also chairs Sustainable Seas National Science Challenge, The Kiwi Trust and Predator Free NZ. He is a director of Te Papa and Ngati Whatua Orakei’s corporation Whai Rawa Ltd. Sir Rob co founded the Sustainable Business Council and The Aotearoa Circle, he is an inductee of NZ Business Hall of Fame and has an honorary doctorate from Lincoln University.
He has made a significant contribution to conservation in New Zealand and Antarctica and was knighted for services to business and conservation in 2016.
Ms. Rangimarie Hunia is a Director of Ngati Whatua Orakei Whai Rawa Limited. With broad experience in the commercial, environmental, education and social enterprise sectors, Rangimarie runs her own business, is a director on the Institute of Directors’ Commercial Board, and a trustee on the Committee for Auckland and the Manaiakalani Education Trust. She was fortunate to lead the education developments for Ngati Whatua o Orakei for a number of years before starting a family.
From 2008 to 2012, Rangimarie was a director of the Ngati Whatua o Orakei Corporate Ltd, the former commercial arm of the hapu. She completed her masters in commerce in 2011 titled ‘Economic Renaissance of a Maori Community: Ngati Whatua o Orakei as a Case Study’ which traces the economic development journey of the hapu. Rangimarie graduated from university in the late 1990's with a commerce degree.
Social entrepreneur Sam Johnson is Founder of the Student Volunteer Army and an Adjunct Fellow in the School of Education and Leadership at the University of Canterbury. Most well-known for founding the Student Volunteer Army (SVA) after the Christchurch earthquakes and for his work in the international disaster risk community. Sam works with Mycare, the airbnb of home care, and shares time between Auckland and Christchurch. Sam is a trustee of Prince's Trust New Zealand, Pacific Development and Conservation Trust and Volunteer Army Foundation.
Together with her husband, Anne took over the Pascoes business of seven stores in the late 1970s and since that time has grown the jewellery business to six brands and 500 jewellery stores in Australasia. The Normans are also behind the Farmers, Whitcoulls and Stevens brands in New Zealand.
Phil is the Director of Iron Duke, a public policy advisory firm to help leaders to connect with, and understand, the process of developing public policy. Formerly the Chief Executive of BusinessNZ, New Zealand’s largest business advocacy group representing thousands of businesses of all sizes, Phil worked with companies, organisations and political and other decision makers, advocating for New Zealand’s success through sustainable economic growth.
Dr Jan Wright was New Zealand's third Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, sworn in for a five-year term in 2007, and reappointed for a further five years in 2012.
Dr Wright has a Physics degree from the University of Canterbury, a master's degree in Energy and Resources from University of California, Berkeley, and a PhD in Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government. Jan previously taught at Sir Edmund Hillary Collegiate in Ōtara, worked as an independent policy and economic consultant for many different government agencies and as a member of various Crown Entity Boards, including as the chair of Land Transport New Zealand.
In her politically independent role as Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Dr Wright led investigations into a range of environmental issues. In her last report, Stepping stones to Paris and beyond, she made the case for a new climate law in New Zealand modelled on the UK’s 2008 Climate Change Act. Dr. Wright is currently sitting on the Interim Climate Change Committee, which has begun to work on how New Zealand transitions to a net zero emissions economy by 2050.
In addition to our Sustainability Advisory Panel our strategy is overseen by our Sustainability Steering Committee, comprised of our CEO, Executive Team and Chief Economist.
Our governance structure helps us to ensure sustainability is overseen at the highest levels of our organisation and embedded throughout our everyday operations.