The Winners

Winner:

Co-operative Financial Services, UK

It is testament to Co-operative Financial Services' (CFS) approach to sustainability that, during a time of unprecedented economic turmoil, the business has continued to deliver strong profitability, growth and ethical leadership. This performance is not built on one or two initiatives but reflects a truly embedded approach to sustainability and nearly 20 years of being at the forefront of the provision of ethical finance and responsible investment. In line with its customers' concerns it has declined over £1 billion of finance that could not meet its ethical policy criteria. At the same time, following its merger with Britannia, it has increased its lending to over £8 billion, including support for renewable technology and the provision of social investment and microfinance. CFS continues to set the benchmark in accountability and transparency in its renowned sustainability reporting, in its response to issues such as climate change and in its pioneering customer-led campaigning activities.

"A bank that has for many years led on the sustainability agenda, uniquely involving its customers in ethical policy development and delivering strong growth throughout the economic turmoil. If there is a time to be moral in banking, it's now."

Runner Up:

HSBC, UK

At HSBC, sustainability is not just about how we do business, it is part of our very raison d'être. As a leading international and emerging markets bank, we are especially aware of our responsibility to manage our business across the world for the long term by making a real contribution to social and economic development and by protecting the environment in which we operate. This means maintaining our financial strength, so that we can continue to deliver value to shareholders by supporting our 100 million customers.
Our focus is on providing financial services that are competitive, transparent and responsive to customer needs. Throughout the crisis, we made credit available to individuals and businesses and provided a safe home for customer deposits. Marking one of the largest clean tech investments in history, HSBC recently announced a US$125 million investment in Better Place, a leading provider of infrastructure for recharging electric vehicles on a large scale.

"This is a bank with robust systems that is putting climate change at the top of its agenda across all divisions from project finance to research, from Lord Stern as a key HSBC advisor through to the creation of their Climate Change Centre of Excellence."

Emerging Markets Sustainable Bank of the Year

 

Nedbank Group is one of the four largest banking groups in South Africa. Listed on JSE since 1969, we offer a comprehensive range of wholesale and retail banking. With a clear focus on being a bank for all, we operate primarily in South and southern Africa, where we enjoy a vast footprint, a significant share of the market and a highly diverse client base. Our ultimate objective is to preserve our planet for current and future generations and make life better for as many people as we can along the way. It is not the profitability of our business that ensures our sustainability, but the sustainability of our business that drives our profitability. Our sustainability journey brings together economic, environmental, social and cultural concerns to unlock synergies across the business and deeply entrench sustainability within the very fibre of our bank. In 2009, we became the first South African bank to commit to carbon neutrality. As a result of the sustainability initiatives undertaken over the last five years, Nedbank Group finds itself more resilient and adaptable, and more focused on moving forward as an organisation that not only lives out its brand aspiration to "Make Things Happen", but also influences others to do the same.

"The first African adopter of the Equator Principles and a past winner, which together with WWF South Africa has crafted sector specific Environmental and Social Guidelines for their provision of finance, and is setting itself tough targets for reducing its own direct environmental impact."

 

BRAC Bank, Bangladesh

BRAC Bank Limited (BBL) started operations in 2001 with a goal to provide banking services to the underserved population of Bangladesh by intermediating funds from urban to rural areas. The majority of its financing is to the SME sector with the aim of assisting economic development. In so doing, BBL has generated employment for over one million people and contributed to economic welfare by enhancing the standard of living. It has also addressed forestry and child labour issues at various policy levels. BBL has initiatives in financing renewable energy and waste management, capacity building in SMEs, increasing financial literacy for the SME sector, financing women entrepreneurs and agriculture, and increasing service quality. BBL has the highest market share in SME financing and women entrepreneur financing in Bangladesh. BBL is one of the 11 founder-member banks of the Global Alliance for Banking on Values (GABV), which has pledged to provide sustainable banking services to one billion people by 2020.

"BRAC Bank is the fastest growing Bangladeshi bank, the largest provider of finance to SMEs, with a strong focus on the provision of finance for women entrepreneurs, and a founding member of the Global Alliance on Banking on Values. A young bank with sustainability at its heart."

For Itaú Unibanco, sustainability means ensuring the sustainable performance of its businesses, with a principal focus on customer satisfaction and creating value in the short, medium and long term for shareholders, clients and society. Its commitment is strengthened through its partnerships, including serving as Global Chair of the Equator Principles Steering Committee in 2008 and 2009, sponsoring the first Latin America implementation of the Carbon Disclosure Project, being a founding member of the Brazilian GHG Protocol Program and being a signatory of the Principles for Responsible Investment. Its sustainability strategy criss-crosses all of its business areas and governance levels, and employs formal sustainability management instruments. Its "Sustainability Policy" has been instituted throughout the Bank, allowing Itaú Unibanco to maintain an ethical and transparent interaction with clients, employees, shareholders, investors, suppliers, business partners and the general public. Its "Essence of Sustainability" sets out eight priority challenges for the Bank to help guide its business operations. Itaú Unibanco has been the only Latin American bank listed on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index since this metric began in 1999, and has been on the São Paulo Stock Exchange's Corporate Sustainability Index since its launch in 2005.

"The current Equator Principles banks Chair and the first from an emerging market to take the role. Strong internal sustainability governance structure split into four levels of committees from Board Directors through to practitioners. This is a bank that delivers on all fronts -- strategy, process and products. The only Latin American institution on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and the first to launch a Brazilian carbon fund."

 

Achievement in Banking at the Base of the Pyramid

Winner:

Financial Information Network and Operations (FINO), India

Financial Information Network and Operations (FINO) provides small loan products to the entrepreneurial poor in India. It is aimed at the set of individuals at the bottom of the pyramid who have no access to formal financial services, primarily due to a lack of awareness and documentary evidence required to open a bank account, as well as a lack of confidence about approaching banks. The target set of customers have entrepreneurial traits, and are mainly local fruit and vegetable vendors, street hawkers and subsistence dairy farmers, in both urban and rural communities. The programme reaches out to customers across the states of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Delhi. The product entails tangible and intangible socioeconomic and observed environmental benefits for the end-customer. FINO's biometric smart card and mobile technology-based low-cost doorstep delivery model makes it sustainable and scalable across all geographies in India.

"FINO provides access to finance to around 14 million people at the Base of the Pyramid in India. Since 2006 they have been pioneering the use of biometric smartcards to allow customers to access branch-less doorstep banking by swiping their finger across the handheld device of the agent visiting their home."

Runner Up:

MicroEnsure is an insurance intermediary dedicated to serving the poor throughout the developing world. We serve around 3.5 million people with an affordable and appropriate range of products including life, property, health and weather index based insurance. With a US$24.2 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2007, the pace of expansion accelerated and more ambitious growth targets became a reality.
Our aim is to achieve sustainability for insurance companies, product distributors and clients. Key to minimising the cost of micro-insurance is the sophisticated MIS system employed in our back office processing that tracks details of clients covered, collects premiums and administers claims. By acting as an intermediary, we are well-positioned to extend insurance coverage very efficiently with simple, understandable and scalable products. Our extensive market research and insurance expertise ensures that we can design products that address the real financial risk management needs of the poor.

"Last year's winner in the Basic Needs category for their weather index crop insurance. This year they have entered their health insurance product that provides very low cost and easily accessible health care services whereby clients are able to turn up at hospital and present their ID cards rather than paying and then trying to seek re-imbursement. In the first year of operation they provided insurance to 40,000 people in India, and are rolling out to Africa and other parts of Asia next year. A crucial breakthrough for accessible healthcare for the poor."

 

Winner:

One Acre Fund, Kenya

One Acre Fund empowers hungry farm families in East Africa to pull themselves out of poverty. Our innovative approach to lending and repayment helps smallholder farmers - who spend roughly 65% of their income on food - to double their farm income and increase their food security. The One Acre Fund market bundle includes group formation, seed and fertiliser on credit, training on the use of these farm inputs and market facilitation. 

"Food is a fundamental basic need and One Acre works with poor farmers in Kenya and Rwanda providing credit for fertiliser and agricultural training targeting a doubling of production per family. They have grown rapidly since set up four years ago and aim to reach 50,000 farmers in 2011, and 1 million by 2020."

Runner Up:

Acumen Fund is a non-profit global venture fund that uses entrepreneurial approaches to solve the problems of global poverty. We seek to prove that small amounts of philanthropic capital, combined with large doses of business acumen, can build thriving enterprises that serve vast numbers of the poor. We believe that pioneering entrepreneurs will ultimately find the solutions to poverty. The entrepreneurs Acumen Fund supports are focused on offering critical services - water, health, housing, and energy - through innovative, market-oriented approaches. The key is patient capital. We use philanthropic capital to make disciplined investments - loans or equity, not grants - that yield both financial and social returns. Any financial returns we receive are recycled into new investments. Over time, we have refined the Acumen Fund investment model, built a world-class global team with offices in four countries, and learned what does and does not work in growing businesses that serve low-income people.

"Acumen make private equity investments into Asian and African companies delivering very high impact poverty reduction or environmental solutions. They promote a middle path between philanthropy and pure market approaches that they term "patient capital". In 2009 they launched their first for-profit commercial funds. Leaders in their field."
 

"A leader in demonstrating that investors can deliver powerful positive environmental impacts while generating excellent investment returns. In 2009 GEF celebrated its 20th anniversary and in a year of financial turmoil still secured high levels of growth and the greatest deployment of investments to date. Marrying sustainability with a determination to bring in superlative returns."

Runner Up:

 

Calvert Foundation has blazed a new trail that makes it possible for everyday people to finance non-profits and community organisations that revitalise communities, develop affordable housing, build micro- and small-growing businesses, support Fairtrade farming, further environmental sustainability, and more. We use investor capital to make loans on flexible terms to groups whose qualifications fall outside conventional underwriting guidelines. These groups then pay back their loans reliably with interest - creating a sustainable virtuous cycle. Calvert Foundation helps over 6,000 caring investors incorporate a unique element into their investment portfolios: the desire to help poor communities. Investing with us provides a guaranteed return (up to 3%) and brings hope and opportunity to underprivileged families throughout the US and around the globe. Calvert Foundation manages more than US$350 million raised through sales of the Community Investment Note and other programmes.

"A long-time pioneer of social investing that has come up with innovative approaches to scale up the deployment of philanthropic capital to the poorest communities around the world. In 2009 they sold over US$55m in community investment that can help lift people out of poverty while providing modest, but low-risk, returns to investors. An idea whose time has come."