National Australia Bank (NAB) has recorded a six percentage point increase in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index to score 94 out of 100, the highest year on year increase and the highest score NAB has ever received.
The assessment recognises NAB as a global leader, with our strongest performance in the areas of financial inclusion, community investment, employee diversity, investing in our people and managing business risks and opportunities.
NAB’s Head of Corporate Responsibility Strategy, Dr Sasha Courville, said it was great recognition for improvements the bank had made.
“Over the past several years we’ve made a number of changes to the way we manage and disclose our environmental, social and governance performance,” Dr Courville said.
“From the way our organisation is governed, the way we manage risk, our customer relationships, our investment in the development and wellbeing of our people, how we explore the links between generating financial returns, to creating positive social and environmental impact, this outcome is a strong reflection of our progress towards becoming Australia and New Zealand’s most respected bank.
“For us at NAB, this includes programs such as our partnership with Good Shepherd Microfinance tackling financial exclusion, our extensive employee volunteering program and our impact investment readiness fund.” she said.
The Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) is the longest-running global sustainability benchmark worldwide and has become a key reference point for sustainability investing. The index aims to identify the organisations that successfully manage sustainability opportunities and risks and therefore represent a greater ability to create value over time. It assesses companies on over 600 economic, environmental and social data-points that have been proven to be relevant to the investment process.
NAB has been included as a component of the DJSI since 2003.
For more information about the Dow Jones Sustainability Index see here: http://www.djindexes.com/sustainability/
