• NAB partners with Melbourne Business School to launch new bank-wide climate training
• Program to equip bankers with skills and knowledge needed to support customers
• Professor Glenn Hoetker from Melbourne Business School said the co-delivery model ensures NAB bankers are learning from credible, highly regarded climate experts and educators

NAB is developing a bank-wide climate training program in partnership with the Melbourne Business School (MBS) to increase climate capability in support of the bank’s approach to supporting emissions reduction and aligning with pathways to net-zero.

The new program will build on the successful delivery of climate risk and adaptation training to 350 NAB Agribusiness bankers last year, as well as the training of around 100 Corporate and Institutional bankers over the past two years.

NAB Chief Climate Officer Jacqueline Fox said NAB and MBS were developing a broader program, one that would provide a foundational level of understanding on climate change and NAB’s response for all bankers, and sector-specific training modules for bankers supporting customers in key sectors.

“This is an exciting step that supports our ‘whole of bank’ approach to the climate transition and it will allow all NAB colleagues to access relevant, science-based climate training at work,” Ms Fox said.

Ms Fox said the training will equip bankers with new skills and knowledge needed to support customers to manage and mitigate climate risks and make the most of emerging transition opportunities.

“NAB is a relationship bank and we’re focused on a relationship-led approach to support the climate transition. As outlined in our 2022 Climate Report, our priority is supporting customers to decarbonise, adapt and build resilience,” she said.

“This can only be achieved if our bankers have the necessary knowledge and skills to support the right customer conversations and lending activities to decarbonise, build resilience and drive growth.

“It is also important that we are helping customers to manage climate-related risk and meet increasing stakeholder expectations of both NAB and our business customers.”

Melbourne Business School and NAB team up to deliver training

The new program will kick off with a ‘climate foundation’ module, which will be launched later this year, and four additional sector-specific modules will follow. The sector modules will cover transport, agribusiness, commercial real estate, and residential real estate and represent some of the bank’s largest market segments.

Melbourne Business School Professor Glenn Hoetker said the program was being developed and delivered in close collaboration with the bank to make sure it was relevant to the needs and roles of different bankers.

“Our co-design and co-delivery model ensures that NAB bankers are learning from credible, highly regarded climate experts and educators at Melbourne Business School and getting the climate science translated into their commercial context, so they can confidently apply it in their everyday jobs,” Prof Hoetker, Director of the School’s Centre for Sustainability and Business, said.

Training the next step in developing climate confident bankers

Ms Fox said the Agribusiness banker training demonstrated the power of the partnership with MBS and the value in developing climate capable bankers.

“Climate confident bankers can have valuable conversations with customers about their transition plans, or their adaptation or resilience plans, and help them reduce risk in their business – which may be from physical climate change impacts, or market access concerns given the supply chain commitments that they sell into, either domestically or globally,” she said.

“The feedback from the bankers and customers has been very positive.  When you hear a customer’s climate or sustainability goals have been better understood, and therefore more likely to be met, because they were supported by a banker who had been climate trained, it puts into perspective how important our people are in helping our customers achieve their net-zero goals.”