Sustainability is a business imperative – here’s how Nedbank Commercial Banking is playing its part
Sustainability is both an ethical requirement and a commercial priority for South African businesses.
Climate resilience measures are necessary to manage rising energy costs, resource constraints, climate risks, and changing stakeholder expectations.
Furthermore, when implemented correctly and alongside the right partners, sustainability gives your business a competitive advantage.
This is why Nedbank Commercial Banking has focused on helping businesses integrate sustainability into every level of their business from start-ups to Mid-Corp clients.
Approaching sustainability, the right way
Sashen Singh, Senior Manager Sustainability Strategy, Nedbank Commercial Banking says the bank has structured its sustainability and climate resilience thinking around the MAT framework, which encourages businesses to mitigate, adapt, and transform.
Mitigation involves reducing emissions, waste, energy consumption, and other environmental impacts, lessening their impact on the environment.
Adaptation requires businesses to adjust their existing processes to account for sustainability, including stronger infrastructure, resource redundancy, and supply chain optimisation.
Transformation embraces a more active approach to sustainability, such as investing in renewable energy, water systems, and the circular economy to generate new business opportunities.
Through this three-level approach, business owners can equip themselves to handle the future of doing business, without having to materially compromise their efficiency in the process.
Financing the transition
There is one key obstacle that holds businesses back from sustainability projects: upfront costs.
Sustainability projects often need meaningful capital, which results in many businesses putting these opportunities on the backburner.
Cashflow constraints stop businesses from thinking about Sustainability investments especially with the current rising input costs and volatile Global energy prices.
Nedbank Commercial Banking is committed to solving this through its innovative Sustainability financing structures.
It allows your repayments to align with your existing cash flows, as well as the savings generated by the sustainable assets in question.
Targeted financing is available for areas like renewable energy, sustainable water and sanitation solutions, circular economy investments and sustainable agriculture.
For farming businesses, you can use this targeted financing to fund efficient irrigation systems, electric and hybrid farming machinery and shade nettings.
“Other businesses can fund their own Sustainability and efficiency solutions to actively boost their environmental footprint and still saving costs to improve financial profitability,” Singh says.
There are many more opportunities available to South African businesses when embracing sustainability alongside Nedbank Commercial Banking as their trusted business partner, so click here to learn more about Nedbank Commercial Banking’s sustainability offerings.
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