Environmental performance

All organisations face challenges as they seek to address climate change, improve operational efficiency and use resources more sustainably. 

It’s everyone’s job to reduce carbon emissions. We’re playing our part as a business while helping our customers transition too. 

We’re continuing to cut emissions in our operations:

• We achieved our target to source 100% of our operational electricity from renewables in 2025
• We have a target to reduce our scope 1 and 2 market-base greenhouse gas emissions by 72% against a 2022 baseline by 2030.

Our environmental performance

Our environmental performance, including our operational emissions reduction target, help us progress against our ambition and be accountable for progress in reducing our environmental impact.

In 2023, we updated our operational science-based Scope 1 and 2 emissions reduction target to align our ambition to be net zero by 2050 with pathway for a 1.5°C warming scenario. Our new target is for a 72% reduction in market-based Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030 from a 2022 baseline and covers:

• all direct GHG emissions (Scope 1 market-based method)
• indirect GHG emissions from consumption of purchased electricity (Scope 2 market-based method) across all GHGs required in the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard.

We continue to make progress towards our environmental operational performance targets in 2025 through a combination of increased sourcing of renewable energy and improvements in energy efficiency.

You can find more information about our environmental performance targets and 2025 environmental performance in our 2025 Climate Report (PDF, 12MB) and 2025 Sustainability Data Pack.

Our assurances and certifications

We believe independent assurance and third-party validation of our performance is important. We undertake a range of annual assurance and third-party certification processes, which gives management and stakeholders confidence in the credibility of our approach and the data reported.

Learn more about our assurance process. 

Regulatory reporting

NAB Group is subject to a range of environmental regulation, including reporting requirements. The key regulatory requirements are as follows:

• the Australian National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act 2007 (Cth) (NGER Act)

• the Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting requirements, which are implemented through the Companies (Directors’ Report) and Limited Liability Partnerships (Energy and Carbon Report) Regulations 2018 (United Kingdom)

• the UK Energy Savings Opportunities Scheme (ESOS), introduced by the ESOS Regulations 2014.

Further information on these regulatory requirements can be found in our 2025 Annual Report (PDF, 18MB), in the 'Climate Change and Environment’ section. Our 2025 Climate Report (PDF, 12MB) also includes further information in the ‘Metrics and Targets’ section.

Assurance of our carbon inventory

In 2025, EY conducted limited assurance over NAB’s:

• Carbon inventory in Australia, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Asia and the United States, and the progress we are making against our Scope 1 and 2 (market-based method) Science-based GHG emissions target; and
• Carbon disclosure risk information– (i) renewable energy disclosure; (ii) project finance sector segmentation and (iii) our environmental financing disclosure.

Please refer to NAB’s 2025 Climate Report (PDF, 12MB) for these assurance statements.

In 2025, EY conducted reasonable assurance over the component of our Australian carbon inventory that must be reported under the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act. Refer to our assurance statement here.

• Download EY’s most recent NGER assurance report (PDF, 170KB)

Third party certification

In Australia, we achieved certification under the Climate Active Standard for Organisations for the emissions inventory we’re monitoring and reporting for our Australian operations. We achieved our initial certification in December 2010 and re-certify our carbon neutrality annually.

Download our latest annual Climate Active public disclosure summary (PDF, 593KB). See Performance and Reporting for previous disclosures.

Bank of New Zealand (BNZ) became a Toitū net carbonzero certified organisation in October 2022. You can find out more about BNZ’s sustainability performance. 

Calculating carbon emissions, including financed emissions

Our carbon inventory includes greenhouse gas emissions sources from operations in Australia, Asia, New Zealand, Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Work on our carbon inventory is ongoing. For some emissions sources, it’s difficult to get access to the activity data needed for accurate greenhouse gas calculations. However, we can provide a picture of the items in our inventory that have been calculated for each of our businesses.

In 2025 our Scope 3 emissions inventory was expanded to include cloud services for Australia . These have been included as these emissions sources have been assessed as being relevant in line with the GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Accounting and Reporting Standard. This follows the inclusion of employee commuting in our inventory in 2024.

Further information on this can be found in our 2025 Climate Report (PDF, 12MB).

The GHG Protocol Scope 3 ‘Investments’ category includes financed and facilitated emissions, which are outside NAB’s operational reporting boundary and therefore excluded from our organisational footprint. NAB has set twelve sector decarbonisation targets for eight of the nine high-emitting sectors identified in UNEP FI Guidance. For more information on this approach, including NAB’s sector-specific lending portfolio decarbonisation targets, refer to the 2025 Climate Report (PDF, 12MB).

Download our Carbon inventory and exclusions for operational emissions (PDF, 237KB).

Our approach to offsetting

The Group first avoids and reduces greenhouse gas emissions associated with NAB’s operational Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions (excluding financed and facilitated emissions) and then retires carbon offsets for residual emissions.

NAB's Australian operations are certified under the Climate Active Standard for Organisations. BNZ  is a Toitū net carbonzero organisation certified.

The Group purchases quality accredited carbon offsets to neutralise remaining emissions. NAB maintains a Group Environment Reporting and Offset Management Policy (PDF, 200KB) to guide the purchasing and retirement of offsets, which are also disclosed annually in NAB’s Climate Active Public Disclosure Statement (PDF, 713KB) and via Climate Active, as part of the certification of NAB’s Australian operations.

In 2025, BNZ has separately purchased offsets through Toitū towards meeting its certification requirements for BNZ operations.

NAB has previously purchased and maintains a bank of offsets that includes ACCUs from Australian sources, including Indigenous-led savanna burning projects which utilise traditional First Nations land-practices, as well as Gold Standard and Verified Carbon Standard international offsets. NAB intends to continue to prioritise projects that deliver social value and other environmental co-benefits for communities, with a focus on Australia and other jurisdictions where NAB has a significant presence.

Forward purchasing offset model

We use a forward purchasing model to meet our carbon neutral commitment. This type of model calculates forecast carbon emissions for the forthcoming year using the actual carbon emissions reported in the prior year's audited carbon inventory.