Lloyds Banking Group is beefing up sustainability training in its corporate and commercial divisions with a view to one day having local managers across the country supporting their business customers to 'go green’.
Paul Turner, head of
Sustainable Development at
Lloyds Banking Group (Wholesale), told
GreenWise the bank was training "a lot of managers" across the bank's corporate and commercial divisions so they are better able to support customers to make the transition to a low carbon economy.
"We are a small team, but we want to build sustainability into the DNA of every
manager right across the bank," he said, adding that he wanted to see local managers getting involved too.
But he warned that it would be some time off before every Lloyds business customer would be able to pop into their local branch to get some advice from their relationship manager on how best to take their
business forward in a low carbon economy.
"As we train up more business managers we will have an increasing capacity to provide [sustainability] support to businesses, but this is a marathon not a sprint," he said.
Lloyds Banking Group, which announced last month that it had returned to profit for the first time since the banking crisis, prides itself on its network of local business managers and claims together they help around 80,000 new businesses get started every year.
"Through our work with our customers and collaborative partnerships we know there are a vast array of businesses struggling and seeking to address their problems and position themselves well in a new green economy," said Turner.
Sustainability mentoring schemes
He said Lloyds was "actively" helping businesses to go green by encouraging them to network with each other and learn from each other, but he said the bank was also getting involved in business to business sustainability mentoring schemes.
The bank is a member and supporter of the Prince’s Mayday Network, the UK’s largest collaborative movement of UK businesses committed to action on climate change.
For almost a year now, Lloyds has been part of a London-based sustainability mentoring pilot scheme aimed at
small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and run by the Mayday Network. The scheme is now about to be rolled out nationally to all members of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) and Turner said Lloyds would be taking a leading role in supporting it.
"In the Mayday Leadership Team we have a range of companies able to support the initiative and Lloyds is one of them," he said.
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Related links:
www.lloydsbankinggroup.com
www.maydaynetwork.com