Westpac chief executive Peter King and some of his group executive team now have climate related measures included in their remuneration packages. The bank released its 2022/23 climate report this week, detailing its climate initiatives over the past year.  Westpac was a slow starter, only joining the Net-Zero Banking Alliance in July last year (the NZBA was formed in April 2021 and by the end of that year its only Australian members were ANZ and Macquarie Group), but it has made up some ground this year. It expanded its financed emissions reductions targets from five when it joined the NZBA, and now has 12 targets covering eight NZBA sectors. Updated positions include: no lending to institutional customers with 15 per cent or more of their revenue coming from thermal coal mining by September 2025; no project finance or bond facilitation for the development of new or expansionary oil and gas fields; and no project finance for new metallurgical coal mining projects. It launched its first Natural Capital Position Statement, which sets out its goal of becoming a “nature positive” bank.  As part of its agriculture 2030 targets, it has committed to no deforestation. This requires no more conversion of natural forest to agricultural land use within farm systems from the end of 2025 for customers in the scope of its agricultural targets. The bank was involved in 58 sustainable finance transactions in 2022/23. It provided $6.5 billion of new lending to climate change solutions between September 2020 and September 2023. Its target is to provide $55 billion of lending and $40 billion of bond facilitation by 2030 that align with its sustainable finance framework. There are some areas where it has yet to make progress. It reported no material change in the emissions intensity of its cement producer customers, and no data on what is going on with residential property emissions.