PADDY MANNING: The Australian:

CAN a bank go green? Yes, if it sets up a worm farm in the basement for food waste, as Westpac once did at Sydney’s Martin Place head office. But no if it insists on funding the logging of old growth forests, as the Commonwealth Bank of Australia has done. CBA is only the latest bank to weather a storm over its investments, such as in 2003 when green shareholders targeted it over its holding in Tasmania’s Gunns Limited, via funds management arm Colonial First State. Westpac has turned itself from the “Bankers to Jabiluka”, in the late 1990s, into the world’s greenest bank according to Swiss firm Sustainable Asset Management, which compiles the global Dow Jones Sustainability Index. Of the top 330 banks, only 30 rated inclusion in the DJSI based on sustainability criteria. Westpac topped them all, which was no mean feat. Westpac, which toyed with the idea of changing its W logo from red to green, has embraced the agenda from the very top down. Chief executive David Morgan — who took home $9.1 million last year under his sustainability linked performance contract — was out touting his bank’s tree-hugging credentials again this week.

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Earlier on TT: In search of sustainability