Citibank Australia has swapped anthropogenic climate change denier Dick Warburton with climate champion Sam Mostyn as company chair, following Mr Warburton’s retirement.
Ms Mostyn has featured in The Fifth Estate numerous times regarding her advocacy for strong business leadership on climate change.
In an exclusive interview last year, Ms Mostyn told us there was a growing interest in sustainability from the C-suite.
She also highlighted the need for a “proper conversation” around cities, including tackling sprawl, urban infill and getting density right.
“We have to understand the costs of [poor planning and sprawl] – there’s an energy cost, and there’s a social cost including access to transport, education, social and sporting opportunities – all of these are harder in outer areas of cities,” she said.
In 2013, she used a Green Capital forum to call for businesses to show leadership on sustainability and gender inequality.
“If I think about the sustainability community, and leadership in this community more broadly, we need lots more of us standing up on our boards, in chief executive rooms, in management committees, and just saying, ‘The standard of the current way in which we think about our economy is not good enough. It’s not valuing the things we know matter to our communities.’”
Ms Mostyn has served as a board member for Citibank since 2011, and also holds board positions with Mirvac, Transurban and Virgin Australia. She has also been AFL commissioner since 2005.
The AFR reported that Ms Mostyn would continue to ensure the bank maintained a strong “risk culture”.
She was reported as being proud of the bank’s move towards “responsible financing”, which included a $141 billion climate change fund.
She is also a keen diversity advocate.
“Diversity [in a board] creates strength that an homogenous group doesn’t have,” she said.
This is very good news. Citibank could make a very useful contribution to the debate by funding some research into the issue of higher density housing forms and urban environments that would be suitable for young families – which has been raised in this issue of The Fifth Estate.