The University of Edinburgh Business School and NatWest Group collaborated to design and deliver a flexible, scalable and impactful L&D initiative that equipped the banking group’s colleagues with the necessary technical knowledge, skills and awareness to deliver on its climate ambition – to be a leading bank in the UK, helping address the climate challenge.
NatWest Group (NWG) and the University agreed on an innovative multi-year partnership that allowed greater agility in programme design to flexibly respond to and capitalise on the banking group’s real-time priorities and colleagues' emerging needs from a climate L&D initiative.
Initial consultation with stakeholders throughout the organisation identified three key objectives:
Clare Martin (left), Head of Learning Content & Capability for NWG said:
We realised early on that climate education is a key part of fulfilling our ambition of becoming a leading bank in the UK helping to address the climate challenge. By enabling colleagues to be equipped with the tools and confidence to engage in climate conversations, we knew we could better help our customers and suppliers transition to a net-zero economy.
The project
Between September 2020 and December 2023, the collaboration successfully scaled an initially targeted training programme for a small community of front-line early adopters in priority roles to ultimately empower more than 63,000 colleagues (99.9% of NatWest Group’s headcount) to understand climate change’s risks and opportunities to the organisation and its customers.
By combining specialist, role-specific and technical learning with general awareness-raising, the L&D initiative exceeded The University of Edinburgh Business School (UEBS) and NatWest Group’s expectations, creating the conditions for positive change, embedding a shared language around climate change throughout the organisation and catalysing action.
Dr Sarah Birrell Ivory (right) is Senior Lecturer in Climate Change and Business Strategy at the University of Edinburgh Business School, she said:
“NatWest Group has trusted our experience and expertise, especially in advice around education design decisions to achieve the most impact. Because of this, they’ve given us access to their staff, processes, and strategies.
Climate education impact
NWG and UEBS’ innovative partnership allowed the programme to respond with agility to the organisation and colleagues’ developing needs to blend and layer different learning strands to create a positive change culture throughout the banking group.
Clare Martin reflected: “The main impact from the programme has been increased confidence and awareness. 98% of colleagues surveyed about the programme felt they’d learned how their role and profession can aid in combating climate change, and 82% felt better equipped to respond to and make decisions connected with climate change impacts. Ultimately, we want to continue to inspire climate action and innovation through learning, and the collaboration with the University of Edinburgh is a vital way of making this happen."
Learning Technologies Awards Gold
The partnership won Gold at the Learning Technologies Awards for the Best Digital Learning Transformation Programme.
The judges said: “We were particularly impressed by the partnership
and their joint tenacity to drive science-based and sustainable
education (rather than just training that has an endpoint). This
programme is driving transformation that is inclusive, diverse, and
brings a sense of belonging to generate value way beyond the learning
itself”.
Centre for Purpose-Driven Innovation
This partnership paved the way for the development of the new Centre for Purpose-Driven Innovation in Banking, another NWG/University of Edinburgh partnership, launched in June 2023 to harness banking data for the good of society. Supported by EI, it involves the Data-Driven Innovation hubs: the Edinburgh Futures Institute and the Bayes Centre, and draws on expertise from more than 100 academics across the whole of the University.
Dr Andrea Taylor, CEO of Edinburgh Innovations, said:
EI is proud to support the development of industry-academic partnerships that leverage the power of education and research to respond positively to the challenges and opportunities of disruption arising from climate change and changing ways of working. Together we can and are making the world a better place.
Find out how you can partner with the University to achieve your strategic goals.
Contact Tobi Schneider, Sector Engagement Manager for Financial Services and FinTech - tobias.schneider@ei.ed.ac.uk
The Centre for Business, Climate Change and Sustainability
