Teachers Mutual Bank supports the Australian Climate Leadership Summit

The Australian Climate Leadership Summit, on 5 November2015, brings together major Australian businesses, representatives from government, investors and NGOs to announce significant climate commitments.

  • 5 November 2015

    Teachers Mutual Bank supports the Australian Climate Leadership Summit

    The Australian Climate Leadership Summit, on 5 November 2015, brings together major Australian businesses, representatives from government, investors and NGOs to announce significant climate commitments. The summit will demonstrate that Australia is ready for a low carbon economy, and that the transition has already begun.

    25 days before the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris, the Australian Climate Leadership Summit will provide a forum for business and government leaders to showcase climate commitments. It is important to show strong climate leadership and start a new conversation on climate.

    Teachers Mutual Bank does not use members’ funds to finance large-scale greenhouse-gas pollution, and does not use members’ deposits to directly lend to, buy equity or debt in, any large-scale greenhouse polluting activities from fossil fuel exploration, extraction, production and use.

    1. Teachers Mutual Banks’ leadership on climate change was detailed in its recent 2015 Annual Report;  Strengthening our lending policy on climate change. Australians are becoming increasingly aware of the environmental impacts of the fossil fuel industry.  We have always maintained a solid stance against lending to and investing in large-scale greenhouse gas polluting activities. This year we took the additional step of formally introducing these exclusions into our Lending Risk Policy and Treasury Credit Risk Management Policy. 

    2. Pioneering the new frontier of ethical investment.  Teachers Mutual Bank’s $500 million Debt Issuance Programme has been certified by the RIAA (The Responsible Investment Association of Australasia) on the basis that Teachers Mutual Banks’ Policy is ‘the exclusion of lending to, or investing in, large scale greenhouse gas pollution from fossil fuel exploration, extraction, production and use’. 

    • It is the first certified ethical investment wholesale cash product in Australia
    • It is the first certified ethical investment wholesale cash product that is based on fossil fuel lending and investing exclusion. 
    • Teachers Mutual Bank is the only bank in Australia with a certified ethical investment wholesale cash product, the proceeds of which are used to fund the balance sheet. 

    Through achieving Certification, Teachers Mutual Bank is recognised as a certified ethical bank.   

    Read our annual report for 2014-15

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