Environment

Green Team

permanent tsb has in place an employee led Green Team, a cross functional working group who together, work on green initiatives and awareness campaigns that support our green agenda.

With the support of the wider Sustainability Steering Committee, the team are focused on environmental programming across the following areas:

• Energy efficiency and transition to a low carbon economy
• Use of resources and recycling
• Green procurement
• Biodiversity and green space
• Volunteering initiatives with an environmental impact
• Communication and awareness

With a focus on continuous improvement, the Green Team meet at regular intervals inviting new ideas and encouraging new ways of thinking.

Actions taken in 2020 to reduce our environmental footprint are outlined below.

Climate Risk

Given the increased focus on sustainability, both in Ireland and around the world, the Bank commissioned Ernst and Young (EY) to conduct a comprehensive sustainability assessment of permanent tsb in 2020. The comprehensive assessment covered a number of topics, including: the transition to a low carbon economy, green products and services, the regulatory landscape; responsible procurement; and, perhaps most notably, climate risk and the effect that it will have on all areas of our business.

Following the assessment, the Bank mobilised a Sustainability Committee with representation from Senior Leaders from each part of the organisation. Led by the Board, the Sustainability Committee commenced work on turning the findings of the EY Report into an action plan for the Bank across a number of dedicated work streams. This work will continue through 2021 and will cover the following in relation to climate risk:

• Integrating climate risk into our existing Risk Management Frameworks
• Identifying activities and assets exposed to climate related risks and measuring impact, for example, our suite of loan portfolios
• Assessing our value chain with a view to limit our exposure and impact
• Monitoring the regulatory landscape and aligning with reporting disclosure frameworks

We are conscious of the effect that climate change has on the Bank and view it as manifesting itself in two ways, firstly, through the operations of our business and secondly the financial risk it brings to the economy in the longer term. Climate Change presents both risks and opportunities to meet new customer needs for permanent tsb and we are preparing for both.

Carbon Impact And The Transition To A Low Carbon Economy

In November 2018, following a significant programme of work, the Bank joined more than 54 of Ireland's leading companies in signing the Business In The Community Ireland’s (BITCI) ‘Low Carbon Pledge’, committing to reduce our Scope 1&2 carbon emission intensity by 50% by 2030.

To deepen our commitment, in 2020 the Bank conducted a review of our value chain from a Scope 3 perspective and implemented a programme of work to measure and track our impact in relation to selected indirect emissions (water, waste and business travel).

Using employee FTE as an intensity measure, we estimate that we have achieved a 55% reduction in Scope 1&2 carbon emission intensity per employee since 2009, our baseline year for the pledge. This reduction reflects an increase in the use of renewable energy by electricity providers, efficiencies in energy use by the business through projects such as our LED lighting upgrade and the impacts of Covid-19 last year, which saw a large portion of our workforce begin to work remotely.

We will begin reporting on our selected Scope 3 emission intensity from 2021.

As we look to the future, we are committed to going further by conducting an in depth review of all areas of our business, with a vision to setting science based carbon emission reduction targets that are in line with the Paris Agreement by 2024.

Energy Usage

Following an in depth piece of work, permanent tsb identified the use of energy as the biggest contributor to our emission intensity accounting for c.70%.

With this in mind, in 2020 we took additional action to support our emission reduction targets and to minimise the impact that our business has on the environment, including:

• Upgrading to energy efficient LED lighting across all our Head Office locations, replacing more than 3000 light bulbs across our business.
• Implementing LED lighting across our branch network as part of our ongoing branch refurbishment process.
• Controlling our Head Office locations by movement sensors, ensuring that all our non-essential lighting remains off when the areas are not in use.
• Celebrating Earth Hour, raising awareness and encouraging our colleagues to reduce their energy consumption both in the office and at home.

To further support the above, in 2017 permanent tsb switched energy provider and we are now using 100% renewable energy.

Waste Management

A large part of reducing our environmental impact is minimising waste, with a target to reduce our impact by 5% annually.

permanent tsb’s waste management supplier is committed to maintaining their environmental ethos by ensuring that no waste goes to landfill and that it is diverted and recycled through multiple resources.

The Bank has in place recycling facilities across all of our sites, including our Head Office building, administration sites, customer services centres as well as recycling bins in our Branch Network.

Actions taken in 2020 include:

• Replacing more than 600 colleague uniforms in our Retail Network with ones made from 95% recycled plastic bottles.
• Introducing a Travel Mug For Life at the end of 2019, resulting in a reduction of more than 850,000 single use paper cups last year.
• Continuing our focus on ‘Go Paperless’, an initiative to encourage customers to select the eStatement option in an effort to manage paper consumption, limit waste and further reduce the Bank’s environmental footprint. More than 800,000 customer accounts are now registered for eStatements, resulting in an on-going reduction of paper by c.5 million pages of paper annually.
• Ongoing integration of a new customer correspondence management tool, delivering a range of new functionality to enable us to continue to migrate our customer correspondence to digital channels on a continuous basis, thereby allowing us to further reduce our reliance on paper.
• Engaging shareholders to encourage them to receive the Annual Report by electronic means. The Bank has c. 130,000 shareholders. In 2021, we expect to only issue c. 1,000 units of the Annual Report in hardcopy, saving more than 16 million pages of paper.
• Monitoring water consumption in all of our branch and administrative sites.
• Celebrating Earth Day, raising awareness and encouraging our colleagues to reduce, reuse and recycle, both in the office and at home.

Responsible Procurement

permanent tsb continues to enhance its Procurement and Sourcing Frameworks to ensure that they support our sustainability goals and objectives. Our Procurement Policy sets out a framework for engaging with our suppliers including a commitment to procure goods, services and works from suppliers who can support the needs of our business in a sustainable manner. It sets out the key social, ethical and environmental standards that we want our suppliers to achieve and is supported by our procurement processes, supplier on boarding procedures and ongoing due diligence practices.

The Bank’s Procurement Policy is reviewed annually, communicated as required and made available to our colleagues on our internal website.