Singapore-based lender DBS has upskilled more than 1,600 institutional banking relationship managers (RMs) and 170 credit risk managers (CRMs) to deepen their knowledge in sustainable financing practices and better help corporate clients navigate the increasingly complex sustainability landscape.

The bank has been organizing specialized “climate activation” workshops since December last year to ensure a robust understanding of the bank’s commitment to achieve net-zero financed emissions by 2050.

Through these workshops, which DBS jointly developed with external sustainability consultants, participants gain a deeper understanding of climate risk, as well as practical tools to identify suitable transition and sustainable financing opportunities for clients.

The bank will incorporate these climate activation workshops as part of the training curriculum for all new institutional banking RMs and CRMs to ensure consistency in driving sustainability conversations with corporate clients.

Yulanda Chung, head of sustainability, institutional banking group, at DBS, says: “Our ability to reduce our financed emissions is integrally tied to the success of our clients’ own decarbonization efforts, and we are committed to helping them on this process. Our RMs play a crucial role as catalysts in supporting our clients on their sustainability journeys. That is why we have invested in curating tailored workshops that go beyond the bank’s foundational sustainability curriculum so as to equip our RMs with the right tools to partner our corporate clients effectively on their decarbonization efforts.”

The climate activation workshops are more specialized than job-specific sustainability training programmes currently offered under the DBS sustainability learning campus, which was launched in late 2022. The campus houses all sustainability-related training programmes – which encompass basic to more advanced courses – by the DBS Academy for the bank’s 36,000 employees.

DBS’ committed sustainable financial transactions – which comprise green loans, renewable energy loans, sustainability loans, and transition loans – totalled S$61 billion (US$45.23 billion) as of end-2022, exceeding its cumulative S$50 billion target two years ahead of its 2024 timeline.