Sustainability Issues Facing Banks Case Study

The Sustainability Issues Facing Banks
Sustainability issues fall into three broad categories – economic (including customer), social and environmental – but each has several subcategories. Barclays, for instance, commissioned reputational research via interviews, surveys and focus groups, testing messages on a range of sustainability issues

The Economic Dimension
The most important aspect of a bank’s sustainability program is managing the impact that its products, services and customer relationships have on the financial sector. First and foremost, a bank must give customers what they want fairly, responsibly and transparently. At the same time, it must provide good working conditions for staff and deliver profitable growth for shareholders.
Banks want to minimize any negative impact their activities may have on the environment and, if possible, ensure their activities have no negative impact at all. In some cases, they will try to reverse damage already caused. Their sustainability policies will also extend to taking steps to protect the environment from others by, for example, refusing to lend to businesses whose actions cause unacceptable harm to the environment, or by insisting that key suppliers adhere to prescribed sustainability standards.
Climate change is, of the course, the environmental issue of the moment, and probably for years to come. A bank’s approach to climate change can be split into three categories:
• Adapting to the effects of climate change; in other words, becoming “climate proof.” This means, for instance, not locating facilities in areas prone to serious flooding or bush fires, having robust disaster recovery plans in place to cope with extreme weather events or other catastrophes associated with climate change, and taking out business interruption insurance.
• Mitigating the impact of a bank’s activities on the climate; in other words, becoming “climate-friendly.” This includes reducing energy use to minimize emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse
Barclays used a company called Corporate Citizenship to check its most recent sustainability claims, and another firm, SGS, to verify its global emissions data.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Introduction
In this study a conclusion about the sustainability attitude of Association of Banks in Singapore would be reached. The ABS is a non-profit organisation that represents the interests of the commercial and investment banking community. As at 30 Nov 2015, our membership comprised 158 local and foreign banks/institutions and representative offices operating in Singapore. To come to this result the sustainability attitude model of Zoeteman (2001) will be applied. The outcome of the study will be divided in four sections;
 First of all, the environmental sustainability attitude of the banks,
 Secondly, the economic sustainability attitude of the banks,
 Thirdly an overview of the social sustainability attitude of the banks , and
 Lastly, the overall sustainability attitude of the banks will be presented.
This model will provide an overview of the different levels that could be reached by a bank and what the different levels indicate.