Policy and Planning for Sustainable Development

Running head: POLICY AND PLANNING FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
POLICY AND PLANNING FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
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1POLICY AND PLANNING FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Business Operations of Commonwealth Bank of Australia........................................................3
Discussion........................................................................................................................................3
Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s need for sustainability strategy.........................................3
Sustainability strategy development of CAB..............................................................................5
CAB Stakeholders’ Benefits in Sustainability Strategy Initiatives.............................................6
Draft of Sustainability policy of Commonwealth Bank of Australia..........................................7
Actions CAB will undertake to execute the sustainability strategy............................................9
Tool by which CAB will measure sustainability strategy achievements..................................10
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................11
References......................................................................................................................................12

2POLICY AND PLANNING FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Introduction
Business Operations of Commonwealth Bank of Australia
Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CAB) is recognized as leading the sector in IT as well
as operations due to its supreme platforms and processes, agile IT infrastructure and innovation
in everything from consumer payments to internet banking and mobile applications
(Commbank.com.au 2019). According to Klettner, Clarke and Boersma (2014), the CAB
efficiently implements sustainability policies and practices through revised group environment
policy, improved funded carbon emissions disclosure, new human rights position statement,
embedded strategy to accountable lending and New Wealth Management Responsible Investing
Framework. Commonwealth Bank recently has announced improved and updated environmental,
social as well as governance (ESG) policies and practices which aid their initiatives of creating a
positive impact through the way in which they execute their business. The vital part of CAB’s
business operations is to comprehensively and consistently studying the lending and investment
decisions in order to realize and evaluate environmental as well as social impacts.
Discussion
Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s need for sustainability strategy
Australian banking industry holds an exclusive position in relation to sustainable
development due to their intermediation purpose between depositors and borrowers. Authors
have claimed that sustainability has been receiving substantial attention as fundamental to the
development of emerging market financial systems (Booth and Whelan 2014). For the Australian
banking sector, such a development signifies increasing demand for superior or better social and

3POLICY AND PLANNING FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
environmental responsibility and also a new landscape of business prospects. In recent times,
banks in Australia such as CAB have initiated to identify the foremost impact of the sustainable
development over the way of unknown development of the society along with the implicitly over
the procedure of creating the banking value in the upcoming days. At this juncture, to attain
sustainable strategy CAB can adopt digital technology (Islam, Jain and Thomson, 2016).
Digital technology has been preserving utmost dedication for creating accessibility,
affordability and sustainability for financial services in Australia (Islam, Jain and Thomson
2016). CAB can implement digital technology in order to improve efficiency along with reduced
expenses in order to put forward affordable services. Furthermore, artificial intelligence deals
with millions of requests as well as queries from online shoppers on a daily basis, whilst cloud
computing has the capacity to process over 100,000 transactions per second (Klettner, Clarke
and Boersma 2014). On the other hand, CAB can focus on involving youths to its sustainable
strategy development. It is imperative to note that amongst 3.5 billion young people who
comprise around half of the world’s population currently acquire traits for instance idealism and
inventiveness which are well aligned for developing solutions to combat SDG-related challenges.
CAB to successfully implement sustainable strategies comprises of Group Environment
Policy since 2001 that has been revised to realize global initiatives to restrain global warming to
two degrees Celsius along with the need to transition from customary financial models to
reduced carbon as well as renewable options (McGuirk, Dowling and Bulkeley 2014). Through
the restructured policy CAB will be able to articulate its dedication to maintain the transition to a
low carbon economy and established on company’s current commitments to decrease its direct
environmental impacts and further implement inclusive environmental risk management
frameworks to CAB’s lending and investing decisions.