WE’RE NOW ONE OF ONLY NINE BANKS IN THE U.S. TO BECOME A CERTIFIED B CORPORATION™. THAT MEANS WE’LL CONTINUE TO USE PROFIT TO POWER OUR PURPOSE, RATHER THAN SERVING AS THE PURPOSE ITSELF.
We’re the First Maine Based Certified B Corp Bank– which means we have met and continue to meet a rigorous performance requirement benchmarked against other high performing companies. We also have changed our legal charter to become as a Maine Benefit Corporation to ensure we strive to create value for all of our Stakeholders- Our Clients, our Colleagues and our Communities.
Simply put, we focus on increasing our positive impacts while reducing negative impacts for the benefit of our Stakeholders. Our journey as a mission-led mutual bank has not surprisingly resulted in leading programs and practices related to our workers and community impact practices and policies. While we’re proud of what we have achieved in our first 152 Years (Since 1870!) as a Community Bank, we know that we’ve yet to reach our potential to fully embrace “Banking as a Force for Good”. In line with our commitment, we are increasing transparency and sharing an honest appraisal of what we’re doing well and where we can do better.
Co-Creating to Fuel Our Future
At the center of our work is a belief that deeply engaging Bank colleagues in this work will lead to better outcomes. To manage all of the potential improvements, we’re leaning on a grassroots, team-based approach. Established in 2022, the “B Corp Steering” structure oversees “Impact Teams” who set metrics and goals in the areas of Inclusion & Belonging, Culture, Community Engagement, Governance & Transparency and Environmental Stewardship.
- To ensure the success of this structure we welcomed a new SVP and Director of Corporate Impact to the Bank in 2021.
- The Steering Committee includes the executive team and senior leaders who chair underlying Impact Teams.
- Teams have a good mix of roles, functions and perspectives present throughout them.
- Many of these working groups were already existing and so it was important to make sure they were fully integrated into the structure.
- Over 40% of our colleagues are directly engaged in helping us co-create our future through this structure.
Key Priority: Improving Environmental Impact
In reviewing our impact against other leading B Corp organizations, we’ve identified Environmental Stewardship as a key area of opportunity. Our Environmental Stewardship team began by surveying and assessing the landscape of material opportunity areas for the bank. They ultimately identified Resource Conservation, Clean Energy and Vendor Practices as priorities for investment. We’re happy to share that this work is underway on a number of fronts.
Resource Conservation: At the heart of Environmental Stewardship is conservation. Aside from the many examples of water pollution and resulting impacts to human health, many of our Communities in Maine are well aware that we have finite resources in our world. We believe it’s imperative to reduce our Bank’s resource usage and avoid creating unnecessary waste. While the goal of zero waste may seem far away for many of us as a society, we’re committed to educating and engaging our colleagues in this journey. We believe that the simple act of reducing waste and increasing recycling is a critical step in stewardship that we can all benefit from.
- We’re engaging in a Waste Diversion Challenge across all of our locations this year to reduce our impact and encourage colleagues to bring their knowledge home to friends and family. We’ll launch this initiative with new bins and uniform signage, as well as education to ensure our teams adopt this as part of our culture.
Clean Energy: Within the B Corp Bank Movement and the banking industry, the need to address our impact in the climate is being prioritized through a multitude of frameworks, commitments and regulatory approaches. One of our most tangible areas of improvement lie within our operational footprint, it’s important that we begin to acknowledge the extended impacts of our fossil fuel use and develop plans to eliminate our reliance on fossil fuels over time. To that end, we’ve taken two important initial steps:
- We partnered with fellow B Corp Revision Energy to support development of a solar farm and we’re happy to share that our Bank Branches and Operations Center are 100% Renewably Powered as of June 2022!
- We’ve partnered with the “On the Pathway to 100% Clean Energy” campaign to create our own path to fossil fuel free operations (inclusive of heating) and have invited other business owners to do the same. We’re currently setting a baseline for our Scope 1 & 2 Operational Emissions so that we can measure our success.
- Vendor Practices: The Bank’s purchased goods and services highlight a unique opportunity to amplify our positive impact on our community. Our goal is to direct our purchases towards organizations that understand the importance of lifting up our communities, operating in an environmentally friendly way and taking care of their workers.
- In 2023, we’ll review our vendor management system and look for ways to increase our support of mission-led, sustainably focused businesses.
- Additionally, we’ll partner with our Inclusion & Belonging Impact Team to identify key metrics to embed in the system related to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.
What’s next for Androscoggin Bank?
In addition to our work on environmental stewardship, each of the Impact Teams noted above is working on a similarly impressive list of improvement opportunities. In the coming year, we’ll focus on enabling colleagues to support this work and reaching further out to our stakeholders than we’ve traditionally done. Our aim is to ensure that you all are enjoying the benefit of our shared success. If you have any questions regarding our B Corp journey, you can email our Director of Corporate Impact, Chris Lyon, directly at clyon@androscogginbank.com.
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