Why sustainability?

At StatePlus, we believe that quality financial planning improves lives, especially in retirement. Many of us will live for many decades in our retirement, so to serve our clients well, we need to be a sustainable organisation in the long term.

Sustainable business practices will enable us to fulfil our responsibilities to our clients and our many stakeholders: our staff, our shareholders and the regulators that oversee our industry. To this end, we are striving to understand the impact we make, both positive and negative, on our internal and external environment. By increasing the positives and moderating the negatives, we will operate more successfully in the long term.

This 2016 Sustainability Report is the first of its kind for us. It shows how we are weaving sustainability factors into our business and its values through four key pillars: people and culture, property and buildings, investments, and corporate giving. Each section explains what we are doing in each of these areas to move our organisation forward.

Our new operating model

In 2016 we are proud to be delivering our new operating model. This is designed around the principle of keeping our clients at the centre of everything we do. As we evolve as an organisation and our clients’ expectations change, we’re investing in our people and technology so we can service clients on their terms. In 2016 we moved away from paper to digital as our main form of client record keeping, an important step towards being a paper-free organisation. This is just the start of our journey to drive a sustainable future service delivery, while continuing to keep clients at the heart of all our initiatives.

Building trust

Operating sustainably is also important to maintaining our clients’ trust. Acting with integrity and commitment will ensure our clients want to continue their relationship with us over their retirement years. An integral part of this approach is maintaining a strong presence in regional centres and continuing to improve the environmental impact of our physical locations. This means developing increasingly sustainable workplaces where our staff and clients can interact.

Trust also comes from involvement in the community. Socially, we are active participants in our communities, and our people support many charities, as does StatePlus as an organisation.

Looking to the future

As with financial planning, corporate sustainability is all about setting and achieving long-term goals. We look forward to further opportunities to develop the sustainability of StatePlus and support the excellent long-term relationships we enjoy with our clients.