How we work with stakeholders

Here are the issues we consider when working with our stakeholders.

Major themes

We value the opportunity to hear about the issues of most relevance to our stakeholders. These interactions help us ensure we’re addressing the sustainability topics that matter most.

Environmental issues

We continue to work with government, advocacy, industry and investor stakeholders on environmental issues, including climate change, natural disasters and biodiversity.

Human rights

We consult a range of stakeholders on human rights issues including the human impacts of modern slavery and other human rights abuse risks, and provide grievance processes to address concerns.

Consumer issues

We embrace inclusive banking practices and responsible sales and offer hardship assistance to make banking easier and more accessible for our customers.

Why stakeholder management matters

Communication and understanding are key to any successful business, especially one with as many diverse external stakeholders as ours. By continually engaging with our wide range of stakeholders we can understand what’s expected of us, identify issues, and discover opportunities to serve customers well and help our communities prosper.

Our approach

Our approach to stakeholder engagement is outlined in our Sustainability Policy (PDF, 271KB), opens in new window, and informed by the AA1000 Stakeholder Engagement Standard, opens in new window. We aim to be respectful, responsive, open and authentic in our engagement on issues of mutual importance.

Key stakeholders include:

  • customers
  • our colleagues and contractors
  • investors (shareholders, fund managers and superannuation funds)
  • analysts
  • industry bodies, associations, regulators and government
  • suppliers
  • the broader community including non-government organisations (NGOs) and our community partners
  • media.

Defining material issues 

Connecting with our many and varied stakeholders is an important part of our strategy. 

In our 2023 Annual Report (PDF, 9MB), opens in new window we detail our diverse range of stakeholder groups, the ways in which we engage with them and their issues of interest. This includes detail on our annual materiality assessment process, which helps us identify the important environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues that shape our business and impact our community.

Through annual assessments, we can observe how perceptions of issues change over time. This helps us understand if our work to respond to material issues is meeting stakeholder expectations. We also use ongoing engagement activities throughout the year to inform our determination of material themes.

Regular engagement

We value constructive feedback and engagement with a wide range of stakeholders, including NGOs and ESG analysts. We take on board their feedback and analysis to assist in the determination of our prioritised material themes. Our most recent engagements are in this table and are also detailed in our 2023 Annual Report (PDF, 9MB), opens in new window.

How we engage stakeholders

Stakeholders Engagement activities ESG Issues of interest
Customers
Engagement activities
  • Market research - customer satisfaction and experience surveys and focus groups
  • Letters from NAB CEO
  • Electronic direct mail
ESG Issues of interest
  • Affordability of banking, fees and interest
  • Financial hardship
  • Supporting vulnerable customers
  • Ethical decision making
  • Role of banks in protecting a strong economy
  • Climate change, including lending to fossil fuel and resource companies
  • Animal welfare
  • Industry regulation
  • Financial education and literacy
  • Transparency and disclosure
  • Human rights, including grievance mechanisms
  • Reducing carbon footprint
  • Information management and security
  • Scams and fraud
Colleagues
Engagement activities
  • Regular colleague engagement surveys
  • Intranet articles and commentary
  • Whistleblower programs
  • Internal social media
ESG Issues of interest
  • Employee engagement and support during crises and organisational change
  • Culture and conduct
  • Corporate citizenship
  • Inclusion and diversity
  • Health, safety and wellbeing
  • Supporting vulnerable customers
  • Capability and personal development
  • Addressing climate change and environmental sustainability
Shareholders (including institutional investors)
Engagement activities
  • Annual General Meeting
  • Investor presentations
  • Analyst briefings
  • Participation in surveys
  • Direct engagement with leadership
  • Direct engagement with NAB’s Investor Relations and Sustainability teams
ESG Issues of interest
  • Governance, conduct and culture
  • Transparency and disclosure
  • Responsible lending practices (suitability of products for customer needs)
  • Achieving fair outcomes for customers
  • Assisting customers experiencing hardship and vulnerability
  • Driving greater adoption of sustainable finance
  • Executive remuneration
  • Climate change
  • Cyber security and data ethics
  • NAB's role in supporting customers to appropriately manage biodiversity
  • Information management and security
  • Exposure to companies with a negative social impact (such as gambling, fossil fuels or tobacco) 
  • Natural disaster response and COVID-19 pandemic support
  • Employee engagement and wellbeing
  • Human rights, preventing harm in NAB's supply chain
  • Scams and fraud
Suppliers
Engagement activities
  • Ongoing relationship management
  • Surveys (as part of due diligence processes and annual engagement activities)
  • Industry forums
ESG Issues of interest
  • Responsible and sustainable sourcing
  • Inclusion and diversity
  • Resource efficiency
  • Off-shoring and outsourcing
  • Managing our exposure to ESG risks
Community partners
Engagement activities
  • Research
  • Surveys
  • Interviews
  • Not-For-Profit customers and Social Enterprise support
  • Meetings
  • Conferences, events and workshops
  • Employee volunteering (skilled, general and remote), workplace giving, donations and fundraising
  • Grants and sponsorship
  • Ethical investments
  • Impact Investing
ESG Issues of interest
  • Natural value and sustainable agriculture
  • Private land and wildlife conservation
  • Impact investing and green finance
  • Financial resilience
  • Mental health and wellbeing
  • Domestic and family violence
  • Climate change and sustainable landscapes
  • Indigenous Australians
  • Natural disasters, preparedness and resilience
  • Affordable housing and homelessness
  • Accessibility and disability
Government and regulators
Engagement activities
  • Regular meetings and briefings
  • Participation in consultation processes
  • Focus groups
  • Roundtables
  • Workshops
ESG Issues of interest
  • Industry regulation
  • Governance processes, including financial crime
  • Public policy
  • Support to the agricultural sector
  • Information management and security
  • Scams and fraud
  • Infrastructure
  • Open banking
  • Sustainability and impact investment
  • Modern slavery
  • Climate change, energy policy and environmental risk
Media
Engagement activities
  • Media interviews and opportunities
  • Proactive media releases
  • Speaking and panel opportunities for NAB’s leadership team
  • Reactive media responses
  • NAB news website
  • Proactive and reactive NAB LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook content
ESG Issues of interest
  • Covid-19 customer and colleague support
  • Industry regulation
  • Products and services
  • Culture and conduct
  • Remuneration
  • Digitisation and data
  • Regional and rural Australia (including branch network)
  • Governance processes
  • Climate change, including transition finance
  • Economic development and growth
  • Natural disaster response
  • Royal commission response
Advocacy organisations
Engagement activities
  • Regular meetings and briefings
  • Participation in surveys
ESG Issues of interest
  • Human rights, including grievance mechanisms
  • Climate change, including:
    • Financing of renewables
    • Financing of fossil fuel companies
    • Financing infrastructure associated with mining developments
  • NAB's advertising placements
  • Animal welfare
  • Industry regulation
  • Nuclear weapons
  • NAB's response to COVID-19
  • Responsible lending practices (including suitability of products and product fees and managing ESG risks)
  • Gambling; supporting customers experiencing financial hardship
  • Disclosure of climate risk and TCFD scenario analysis outcomes

Your feedback

We know how important it is to listen and respond to customer and community feedback on a wide range of issues. We’re focused on having resilient and sustainable business practices – this includes how we manage our operations (including our supply chain) and our financing activities.

If you would like to give feedback or raise an issue about our business, you can contact our  NAB Resolve team who will lodge your feedback or issue with the appropriate NAB department for investigation as required. We'll ensure that you're updated at an appropriate time.

To raise a human rights concern, you can email us at grievances@nab.com.au. Grievances will be addressed by the appropriate area for investigation and actioning. Guidance on how to raise a concern can be found in various languages on our humans rights approach page. 

If you want to contact the Sustainability team directly, you can email us at social.impact@nab.com.au.

Explore sustainability at NAB

Learn more about how we’re embedding sustainability throughout our business. 

Human rights approach

Upholding human rights is fundamental to the way we do business.

Sustainability approach

Learn how we’re embedding sustainability throughout our business.

Managing our supply chain

Learn about our approach to managing our supply chain to ensure we can deliver high quality products and services.

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