HNB partners with InterBalance to implement sustainability management framework

Hatton National Bank, one of Sri Lanka’s leading banks, partnered with InterBalance to refine and upgrade its sustainability management framework to integrate sustainability within business strategy and operations. 

Co-founded by Chulendra de Silva and Charith Jayasundera in 2015, InterBalance is a consultancy services provider for corporate clients in the fields of sustainability and enterprise risk management that strives to provide management solutions by way of customised processes and frameworks. 

Working together with an organisation, InterBalance seeks to assess challenges faced by it in the areas of sustainability and risk management, and then establish practical, implementable organisational processes and structures to help organisations integrate sustainability and enterprise risk management within their business strategy and operations. 

“Sustainability is not about an initiative or about a report, It’s about the relevance of what you do and why it’s done and therefore needs to be a top down approach which is directly linked to the organisations strategy,” said Jayasundera, Co-Founder and Partner of InterBalance. “The sustainability management framework developed with the assistance of InterBalance enabled us to review our performance throughout the year holistically from both a financial and non-financial perspective, which provided us with valuable management insights,” said Hatton National Bank Chief Operating Officer Dilshan Rodrigo.

He added: “It allowed us to identify our critical sustainability areas based on relevance to our operations, and define KPIs that track the bank’s progress towards achieving our goals of financial inclusivity, energy efficiency, green banking practices, poverty alleviation, CSR, and access to disadvantaged communities.”

“HNB’s sustainability strategy revolved around its customers, communities, the environment and its own internal stakeholders. As a result, a full range of KPIs and a sound sustainability process to manage its overall performance – not just financial performance, was a key requirement for HNB,” said De Silva, Co-Founder and Partner of InterBalance. 

Explaining the implementation process carried out at HNB, he explained: “We undertook a knowledge sharing exercise with HNB and carried out a critical review of the bank’s sustainability process. This allowed us to develop a comprehensive Sustainability Performance Analyser that provided quarterly sustainability information for decision making to senior management. We also developed Standard Operating Procedures for sustainability data collection and to ensure data accuracy, internal sustainability assurance checklists, and provided guidance to the internal sustainability team on carrying out internal sustainability assurances. We were also able to provide recommendations to the internal teams, on developing the bank’s Integrated Report taking into consideration its sustainability performance within its capital management sections.”

Explaining about the services offered by InterBalance, he said: “Our scope of services intends to not only focus on a few individual aspects of Sustainability or sustainability initiatives, but to put in place a comprehensive management process that covers an organisation’s full sustainability performance management and reporting process, which is aligned to the organisational strategy. We believe that it is only then, that sustainability becomes sustainable in an organisation.”