Case study: How Skipton Building Society and Skipton International work with clients and customers to encourage sustainable practices

Stakeholder identification and consultation

Please describe which stakeholders (or groups/ types of stakeholders) you have identified, consulted, engaged, collaborated or partnered with for the purpose of implementing the Principles and improving your bank’s impacts. This should include a high-level overview of how your bank has identified relevant stakeholders, what issues were addressed/results achieved and how they fed into the action planning process.

Skipton Building Society’s and Skipton International’s primary stakeholders include members and customers, employees, suppliers, banking partners, and regulators. Skipton Building Society and Skipton International engage and consult with them in various ways regarding sustainability. This has included conducting a materiality assessment in 2023, which involved customer research to gain insights into stakeholders’ perspectives on sustainability. Skipton Building Society and Skipton International plan to carry out these assessments every three years, with the next scheduled for 2026.

Examples of how Skipton Building Society and Skipton International engage with stakeholders on sustainability include:

Universities
The Society collaborated with Leeds Beckett University and the University of Leeds on a residential property retrofit study. This partnership has enhanced the Group’s understanding of the costs, behaviours, and experiences associated with retrofitting homes, helping to identify ways to support and promote access to retrofit solutions for a broader range of members and customers.

Progress Together
The Society has partnered with Progress Together (PT) to improve opportunities for colleagues from lower socio-economic backgrounds within the financial services sector. Annually, social mobility data are submitted to PT, who analyze it to assess the organization’s representation, provide improvement recommendations, and benchmark progress against industry peers.

Supplier Relationships
The Society monitors all relationships with suppliers and utilizes EcoVadis to evaluate their sustainability credentials. This ongoing assessment helps gain a better understanding of their sustainability goals and progress, and guides the Group in implementing measures to uphold high sustainability standards across its supply chan.

Charity Partners
The Group is committed to donating 1% of its pre-tax profits annually to charity and has established strategic partnerships with charities whose missions closely align with its own. Members and colleagues participate in choosing these partners; for example, at the June 2024 AGM, members voted to support Age UK with the 2023 donation to help people secure a home, while Society colleagues voted to support National Energy Action to promote warm and energy-efficient homes.

Industry Bodies
The Society collaborates regularly with industry organizations, providing opportunities to connect with peers on relevant sustainability topics such as retrofit financing and propositions.

How did Skipton Building Society and Skipton International work with clients and customers to encourage sustainable practices and enable sustainable economic activities?

In their 2024 PRB Joint Progress Statement Report Skipton Building Society and Skipton International report that they work with its clients and customers to encourage sustainable practices and enable sustainable economic activities as follows:

The Society is member-owned, and with Skipton International being a subsidiary of a mutual organization, they share the Group’s responsibility to its members to ensure long-term financial sustainability.

Skipton Building Society and Skipton International are actively engaging with their members and customers through various initiatives to promote sustainable practices:

Fair Customer Experiences and Outcomes
Skipton Building Society and Skipton International are dedicated to delivering positive customer experiences and outcomes, always taking individual circumstances into account. To support this, the Society provides annual training to all colleagues to help them identify signs of current or potential vulnerability. Similarly, Skipton International trains their staff annually on supporting vulnerable customers. Additionally, the Society has established a Vulnerable Customer Policy and Guidance Document to ensure it delivers equitable outcomes for all customers, regardless of their circumstances or vulnerabilities.

Supporting Members
Skipton Building Society and Skipton International aim to promote energy-efficient homes, exemplified by the Society’s Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) Plus scheme, which offers members and colleagues a free home energy assessment and report to identify ways to improve energy efficiency. The Society also provides an Additional Borrowing product for existing members to finance energy efficient home improvements such as solar panels, insulation, new windows and doors, or ground and air source heat pumps.

Investment Options
The Society’s financial advice division offers clients a selection of passive third-party investment funds that exclude holdings in industries like arms manufacturing, tobacco and thermal coal, or which fail to uphold one or more of the UN Global Compact principles. They also prioritize investments in companies committed to sustainability, including those with lower carbon footprints, supporting efforts to build a more sustainable future.

UN Principles for Responsible Banking: Accelerating a positive global transition for people and the planet

With over 300 signatory banks representing almost half of the global banking industry, the Principles for Responsible Banking are the world’s foremost sustainable banking framework. Through these Principles, the banking community takes action to align core strategies, decision-making, lending and investment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and international agreements such as the Paris Climate Agreement.

FBRH Principles for Responsible Banking (PRB) Assurance:

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The combination of all the above empowers FBRH to provide first class Principles for Responsible Banking (PRB) assurance services.

References:

This case study is based on published information by Skipton Building Society and Skipton International, located at the link below. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses. However, we made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the report’s meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original please revert to the following link:

https://www.skiptoninternational.com/media/mhsd2gqo/principles-for-responsible-banking-2024.pdf

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