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Environmental Impacts

We are committed to conducting our business in an environmentally sustainable manner and recognise the significant global threat posed by climate change and other environmental issues.

  1. Overview
  2. Global Citizenship
  3. Consumer Issues
  4. Supporting Enterprise
  5. Employee Engagement
  6. Safety and Security

Our approach to environmental issues is coordinated through our Group Environment Programme, which is overseen by our Environment Working Group. There are 4 key areas of focus:

  • Customers, products and services
  • Environmental risk
  • Operational impacts
  • Employee engagement

Customers, products and services

In 2008, RBS was one of the world's leading global arrangers of finance to renewable energy projects - predominantly onshore wind, solar and hydro projects. We were also a major arranger of finance to fossil fuel projects - a position which drew some criticism from a number of campaign groups. In total, our project financing to renewable energy projects represented around 24% of our total energy financing.

For our personal and small business customers, we have created products and services that make further contributions to environmental sustainability:

  • In 2008, more than 1.6 million accounts switched to our 'go paperless' facility giving annual savings of around 240 tonnes of paper
  • Citizens Bank launched the Green$ense account, financially rewarding customers for reducing paper-based transactions

Environmental risk analysis

In 2008 we further developed our processes and procedures to assess environmental, social and ethical risks.

View the Group's Environment Policy (pdf 26KB)

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For transactions that require project finance, we follow the Equator Principles guidelines, our classification of 2008 projects is included in the table below:

2008 project finance deals

Status of PF deals first logged in 2008

Equator Principle Category A B C Total
Deals approved with environmental and social conditions 0 29 9 38
Deals declined 4 44 15 63
Total number of deals 4 73 24 101

PF deals first logged in 2008 by industry sector

Equator Principle Category A B C Total
Infrastructure 0 30 4 34
Power & utilities, renewables 1 13 12 26
Oil & gas 0 10 2 12
Mining & metals 3 6 2 11
Other 0 14 4 18
Total number of deals 4 73 24 101

Direct operational impacts

Through the course of 2008 we have continued to implement a number of initiatives that aim to reduce our direct environmental impacts and make our operations more resource-efficient:

  • Procured 92.2% of our contracted electricity in the UK and Ireland from renewable sources
  • Completed environmental upgrades to a number of buildings
  • Invested in rainwater harvesting systems at several of our main buildings in Scotland, the USA and Dubai

Key Environmental Data

  2008
UK and Ireland		 2008
USA		 2008
Group Total
Energy
Total energy consumption (GWh) 960.8 275.7 1507.3
Renewable electricity use (% of total electricity consumption) 92.2% 7.7% 59.1%
Waste
Total confidential waste (Ktonnes) 17.6 5.0 27.6
Water
Property-based water use (million m3) 1.74 1.23 3.62
Business Travel (million km)
Total business travel 376.2 101.3 582.1
Air - (Centrally booked) 190.6 62.4 308.3
Road 160.7 37.9 242.2
Rail - (Centrally booked) 24.9 1.0 31.5
Paper (Ktonnes)
Total paper 39.7 7.1 57.0
Estimated CO2 emissions (Ktonnes)
CO2 emissions from property based energy use 418.8 120.9 657.9
CO2 emissions from business travel 55.1 20.2 91.8


Measuring our performance

In 2009 we continue to be highly rated in the main external indices that measure environmental and social performance.

  • Participated in the Carbon Disclosure Project for the sixth year running and awarded a score of 77% for our approach to managing climate change related risks and opportunities
  • Included in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index with a score of 76% for our approach to social and environmental issues
  • Maintained inclusion in the FTSE4Good Index
  • Fulfilled our commitments under the UN Global Compact