Q. How has the SFN influenced senior management thinking at NatWest Group?
As an employee-led network, the SFN acts as a voice for NatWest Group colleagues on matters of climate and sustainability. This means we have a regular dialogue with the company’s executive committee: providing updates on what we’re working on and relaying the sentiment of our members on specific climate topics.
As such, we have been able to play our part in directly raising and shaping the bank’s climate agenda. One area in particular has been the SFN’s key role in the bank’s Climate Education Working Group, where we have worked alongside the bank’s fulltime education team to deliver complementary sessions on a range of topics important to our members.
For us, this engagement feels incredibly empowering: knowing that the next generation of leaders are already being listened to and informing future business priorities.
Q. What is the SFN working on right now?
One of our key ambitions is to engage other businesses to stimulate sustainable change from within. We know that empowering employees can lead to enormous success in challenging the status quo in any organisation, and by sharing the ‘Institutional Activism’ strategies we’ve developed, we believe that we can help passionate people create change wherever they work.
How are you inspiring this change?
We started exploring this theme at COP26 by chairing an event with Microsoft, Hitachi Rail, and Scottish Power which focused on the potential of empowering youth activism.
In March 2022, at an event jointly hosted with KPMG’s sustainability network, the SFN expanded the discussion further. Over 80 people from customers and partner organisations, joined us for a panel discussion and interactive workshop about how to successfully build purpose-led businesses.
For us, this clearly demonstrated the power that can come from effectively partnering with the right organisations. But more importantly, it showed how we can create a positive influence that extends far beyond our own organisation.
