By Iain Withers
LONDON, July 22 (Reuters) - Royal Bank of Scotland
has hired climate change expert Nicholas Stern to help shape its
sustainability strategy as the state-backed lender prepares to
rebrand as NatWest Group.
RBS Chief Executive Alison Rose has made helping to tackle
climate change a big part of her strategy to rebuild its brand
and break with its chequered recent past.
Stern, who authored the influential Stern Review in 2006
that helped set the agenda on the economic costs of global
warming, will advise the group on meeting targets to make its
own operations carbon neutral by the end of this year and
halving the climate impact of its financing activity by 2030.
His two-year appointment comes as the bank said it signed up
to the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative's
Collective Commitment to Climate Action, which sets out how
banks will align their services and lending with the objectives
of the Paris Agreement.
"There is an intense urgency to tackle climate change now:
this is an absolutely crucial decade for taking action to
protect future generations," Stern said, adding that the
COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the "dangers, fragility and
inequities of the old economy".
RBS is expected to secure formal approval of its name change
from Companies House in Edinburgh later on Wednesday.
The change seeks to distance the lender from a brand sullied
by reckless expansion, forcing it into a 45.5 billion pounds
($57.81 billion) government bailout during the 2008/9 financial
crisis.
"The bank has changed fundamentally over the last decade and
now is the right time to align our group name with the brand
under which the majority of our business is delivered," Chief
Executive Alison Rose said.
The RBS brand will still be used, primarily in Scotland, the
bank said.
The NatWest brand grew out of National Westminster Bank
which RBS bought in 2000 and scores more highly on customer
satisfaction benchmarks.
($1 = 0.7870 pounds)
(Editing by Sinead Cruise and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
