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Australian Greenhouse Office (AGO): The lead Commonwealth agency on greenhouse matters — responsible for both the coordination of domestic climate change policy and delivery of major new and existing Commonwealth greenhouse programs.
APRA: Australian Prudential Regulation Authority
ASIC: Australian Securities and Investments Commission
ASX: Australian Securities Exchange Limited
ATM: Automated Teller Machine
Basel II Capital Accord: An international framework that sets out mimimum capital and risk managment requirements for banks and other financial institutions. The objective is to promote safety and soundness in the financial institutions by ensuring maintenance of sufficient capital levels, along with supporting policies and processes and robust governance practices to safeguard against credit, operational, market and interest rate risks.
Carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2-e): Carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2-e) are the unit for measuring the quantity of greenhouse emissions.
Category A Projects: Category A projects are defined by the International Finance Corporation as likely to have significant adverse environmental impacts that are sensitive, diverse or unprecedented.
Cogeneration: Cogeneration is a highly efficient way of simultaneously converting gas into a number of useable forms of energy. (eg. electricity and useful heat).
Custody services: Custody and related services to foreign institutions, superannuation funds, government bodies, fund managers, insurance companies and other entities. Key products include sub-custody, global custody, master custody, investment administration outsourcing, securities lending and cash deposit facilities.
ECF/TCF: Elemental Chlorine Free/Toally Clorine Free.
EEO: Equal Employment Opportunity
EFTPOS: Electronic Funds Transfer at Point of Sale.
Energy – direct: Direct energy is the energy consumed by an organisation to perform its day-to-day activities. It includes energy from fossil fuels, purchased electricity and renewable sources, but does not include energy sold by the organisation for use by others. It includes production of energy, heat steam and electricity from sources within the boundary of an organisation as a result of that organisation’s activities.
Energy efficiency: Using less energy to achieve the same or greater levels of output.
Energy – indirect: The simplest definition of indirect energy is energy used to produce electricity consumed. It can also include energy generated in the wider economy as a consequence of an organisation’s activities (particularly from its demand for goods and services) but which are physically produced by the activities of another organisation.
Enterprise Bargaining Agreement (EBA): Employment conditions agreement between the Group and a union.
Environmental aspect: An environmental aspect is the ‘cause’ of an environmental impact resulting from an activity, product or service.
Environmental impact: Any change to the environment, whether adverse or beneficial, wholly or partially resulting from an organisation’s activities, products or services.
Equator Principles: An industry approach for financial institutions in determining, assessing, and managing environmental and social risk in project financing. Refer to www.equatorprinciples.com
Financial services: Business unit includes — personal, business and corporate banking, agribusiness, cards, payment processes and systems — particularly e-commerce – and asset finance and fleet management.
Footings: Combined total of deposit and lending volumes.
FTE: Full-time equivalent. A measurement for employee number.
Green energy: Energy from renewable energy sources.
Greenhouse emissions: Gaseous pollutants released into the atmosphere through human actions that amplify the greenhouse effect. The greenhouse effect is widely accepted as the cause of global climate change. Gases creating greenhouse pollution include water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexofluoride.
HREOC: Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission
IFC: International Finance Corporation
IMS: Institutional Markets and Services
Joule: A unit of energy. A gigajoule GJ is 109 (1 billion) joules.
kL: Kilolitre or 1000 litres.
Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR): The Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR) is calculated as reported lost time injuries resulting in one day/shift or more off work per 1,000,000 hours worked.
Market services: Traded products and risk management solutions including foreign exchange, money market, commodities and derivatives.
MWh: Megawatt hour. A unit of energy used often in relation to electricity. A megawatt is one million watts. One megawatt hour is one million watts running continuously for 1 hour. 1MWh = 3.6 GJ.
Natural ventilation: A ventilation system that runs without the use of electrical energy or fossil fuels. It uses passive solar design principles to block the summer sun entry and have windows placed to catch cooling breezes and therefore maximise cross-ventilation in summer.
NGO: Non-government organisation
Ozone depleting substance (ODS): A compound that contributes to stratospheric ozone depletion. Ozone-depleting substances (ODS) include Chloroflurocarbons (CFCs), Hydrochloroflurocarbons (HCFCs) halons, methyl bromide, carbon tetrachloride, and methyl chloroform. ODS are generally very stable in the troposphere and only degrade under intense ultraviolet light in the stratosphere. When they break down, they release chlorine or bromine atoms, which then deplete ozone.
Precautionary approach: The precautionary approach was developed as part of the Rio Declaration of 1992, in which Principle 15 stated ‘in order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by states according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation’.
Renewable energy: Energy that can be used without depleting its reserves. These sources include sunlight or solar energy and other sources such as wind, wave, biomass and hydro energy.
Small-business customers/small-medium enterprise: In this Report, small-business customers generally have a turnover less than $10 million. To reflect regional market needs, customer classifications differ across Australia, the UK and New Zealand. Some small-business customers may be outside this range.
Socially Responsible Investment (SRI): Investments that use criteria to select a portfolio of socially and/or environmentally responsible companies.
Specialised finance: A range of financial solutions utilised in large-scale, complex transactions such as project finance, structured finance and acquisition finance.
TAC: Technical Advisory Committee
Transactional services: Cash management, e-commerce, merchant facilities, liquidity management and international payment services.
Wealth management: Wealth management products include financial planning services offered in conjunction with financial advisers – private banking, wealth creation (investment), wealth protection (insurance), superannuation and retirement solutions for retail customers; outsourced investment, superannuation and employee benefit solutions for corporate and institutional customers; asset management – providing investment management advisory services including research, selection and monitoring of investment managers under a ‘manager of managers’ approach which under pins all the Group’s investment offerings.
Work/life balance: The ability of an employee to balance the demand of work and family responsibilities.
Volatile organic hydrocarbons (VOCs): A general term that refers to a large and diverse group of substances, including hydrocarbons, oxygenates and halocarbons that readily evaporate at room temperature.
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