Caring for our enviroment

We’re continuing to look at ways to become a ’Greener Dragon’, by reducing our environmental footprint and helping our customers, staff and community to do the same.

The St.George Group Environmental Policy outlines and guides our approach to responsible environmental management and our Environmental Management System helps us manage our environmental footprint.

Practical changes we’ve introduced in our workplace include:

• Behavioural and building services changes to reduce the volume of water used
• Local management initiatives to ensure energy savings benefits are considered in every business case decision
• Participation in the Cartridges 4 Planet Ark recycling program
• Shredding bins used nationally to recycle our office paper
• Collecting safety data on the amount of chemicals and solvents used in the workplace and sourcing alternate, safer products

Paper

As a Bank we recognise that the use of paper is probably one of our largest environmental impacts. As such, we're looking at ways we can reduce our use of paper and ensure it's sourced responsibly. For e.g. making sure the paper we purchase for printed materials is sourced from sustainable managed forests and manufactured in mills that have an industry recognised accreditation (eg: ISO 14001), and where possible Australian made.

Business decisions

St.George takes into account environmental risk in our lending process. In the event there is a risk, group policies are followed.

Supply chain

Many of our environmental responsibilities lie in our supply chain. As such, we have arrangements with our suppliers that seek to ensure they comply with current legislative and regulatory environmental requirements and community expectations. Suppliers are also asked to provide us with information on their sustainable practices.

Helping the environment starts at home

To help staff do their bit for the environment, we offer them interest free loans to purchase rainwater tanks, energy and water efficient appliances and solar hot water systems for their homes. We also provide paid volunteer leave to assist environmental, community or charitable projects.

Rewarding our customers who help the environment

For the average family, the car is the single biggest emitter of CO2 in their household. The average family car (3.0 - 3.9 litre engine) travelling between 15,000 and 20,000 kilometres a year emits 4.7 tonnes of CO2 annually.

At St.George we want to reduce our environmental footprint and help our customers do the same. Together with CGU we offer our customers who limit their car travel to 10,000km per annum a discount on our car insurance. To be eligible customers must be over the age of 25*.

Participation in Earth Hour

St.George participates in Earth Hour - an initiative of WWF-Australia and Fairfax Media, which calls on individuals and businesses to turn off their lights for one hour to show it's possible to take action on global warming. For more information visit www.earthhour.org