ANZ

We are also developing guidance for our staff on the social, human rights and environmental issues that are commonly associated with particular industry sectors we service. We provide this guidance to ensure our staff are fully aware of the implications of doing business with particular sectors.

Industry guidance notes will contain an overview of a sector's regulatory requirements, key social and environmental issues facing the sector and the measures we would expect a client from that sector to take to effectively identify and manage social and environmental risks.

ANZ has assessed its portfolio of clients to determine our exposure to industry sectors which have social and environmental risks such as electricity generation, mining, forestry, plastics manufacturing etc. The assessment was based on the Australian and New Zealand Standard Industry Classification (ANZSIC) codes covering around 500 industry groups.

This assessment shows that around 6% of our portfolio has high social and/or environmental risk.

In 2006, we also conducted an audit of our lending portfolio based on a methodology developed by the CSIRO and the University of Sydney, which measures the social and environmental risk posed to specific industry sectors.

This analysis not only measures the bank's exposure to 'risky' sectors, but also allows us to identify those clients most affected by environmental change.

For instance, we can use the analysis to identify clients that would be most heavily affected by an increase in the cost of water, and then offer those clients financial solutions to mitigate the risk to their business (eg. finance to improve water efficiency).