Sustainability Pillars

Delivering Impact – Closing out our 2023-25 Investing in Tomorrow Sustainability Strategy

2025 marked the successful conclusion of our ‘Investing in Tomorrow’ Sustainability strategy. We closed the year and strategic cycle with strong momentum and delivery across all three pillars: supporting the green transition, enhancing financial wellbeing and enabling our colleagues to thrive. Our key achievements across our pillars from 2023-25 are highlighted below.

  • Pillar 1: Supporting the Green Transition

    The Group is committed to playing its part in the transition to a resilient, net zero and sustainable economy by 2050, in line with the actions and plans of the Irish and UK governments. Over the 2023 to 2025 Group strategic cycle, we delivered on the following commitments:

    • Met our 2025 Sustainable finance target of €15 billion ahead of schedule, with sustainability-related lending reaching €17.7 billion by 2025. This amount has more than doubled over the three year Group strategic cycle, from €8.2 billion in 2022, keeping us firmly on track towards our €30 billion sustainable finance ambition by 2030;
    • Redesigned our mortgage offering with our EcoSaver product that offers customers lower rates for higher energy rated homes, thereby incentivising investment in energy efficiency and encouraging sustainable housing;
    • Extended our sustainable finance product range across sectors, through green residential mortgages, sustainability-linked lending for small and medium enterprises and farmers, electric vehicles (EVs) and renewable energy generation;
    • Launched sustainable business coach, a free to use digital tool designed to support businesses with sustainability planning and to identify their environmental, social and governance (ESG) priorities;
    • These interventions supported the continuing decarbonisation of our loan book with the carbon intensity of our Republic of Ireland residential mortgage and commercial property portfolios down 26% and 34% respectively since 2020, and emissions from our own operations down by more than 64% over the same period; and
    • Raised €3.75 billion through new green bond issuance over the 2023 to 2025 strategic cycle, bringing total green issuance outstanding to €5.4 billion by end-2025.
  • Pillar 2: Enhancing Financial Wellbeing

    The Group continued to expand and enhance its financial wellbeing initiatives to deliver impact for customers and society:

    • Remained the number one bank for financial wellbeing among Irish consumers and expanded our financial wellbeing programme, helping over 416,000 customers over the three year strategic cycle with financial resilience education and supports amid inflationary pressures and fraud risks;
    • Enhanced our fraud prevention efforts through new tools and education campaigns designed to safeguard and protect vulnerable customers. In addition, Bank of Ireland’s four-point plan to combat fraud influenced draft EU legislation which could enhance protections for more than 450 million European consumers.
  • Pillar 3: Enabling Colleagues to Thrive

    The Group also deepened its commitment to inclusion, colleague development and wellbeing, ensuring its people can thrive in a diverse and forward-looking workplace:

    • Launched and expanded on our neuroinclusion programme to support neurodivergent colleagues and candidates with a neuroinclusion toolkit, a practical ‘how to’ resource to help organisations create more inclusive environments for neurodivergent talent. This milestone reinforces our ambition to become one of Ireland’s most neuroinclusive employers and provides evidence-based guidance for organisations nationwide;
    • Advanced our work on inclusion with the publication of a report, ‘Fostering Ethnic Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace’, highlighting challenges faced by ethnic minority individuals in Ireland’s labour market while outlining practical steps employers can take to build a more equitable and inclusive workplace;
    • Introduced a culmination of new and enhanced family friendly policies, which create a more supportive, flexible workplace; and
    • These collective actions helped elevate us to seventh place in Ireland’s Top 200 Employers for 2025, up from 133 in 2021, demonstrating our continued progress in developing a workplace that attracts and retains top talent.

To learn more about the Group’s management of material sustainability topics, visit the Sustainability statement section on pages 112-222 of our 2025 annual report.

 

Sustainability Strategy 2026 to 2028

A key objective of our previous ‘Investing in Tomorrow’ sustainability strategy was to embed sustainability into the organisation’s wider strategic priorities and become central to our culture and operations. The focus is now shifting to amplifying our impact.

As we look out to the end of the decade, our ambition is to support positive societal impact by being Ireland’s most trusted sustainable finance partner, using innovation to empower customers to transition to a net zero and sustainable economy. We will continue to support financial inclusion and resilience, alongside community and economic development. This ambition underpins our evolved Sustainability Strategy 2026 to 2028.

In evolving this strategy, our horizon scanning has identified three key societal challenges shaping Ireland and the UK: the climate transition, housing supply and infrastructure, and social inclusion. These challenges anchor our evolved strategy which aims to create long-term value for all of our stakeholders and support a sustainable, inclusive, and resilient economy.

Our efforts over the 2026 to 2028 cycle will focus on three new pillars, each of which builds on the strong progress we made during the previous strategic cycle:

  • Supporting the Green Transition – partnering with customers to support the transition to a low-carbon and sustainable economy. We are increasing our focus in this cycle on progress for business customers, partnerships and eco-systems, including championing the agriculture sector. With respect to the assets we manage on behalf of our customers, we plan to take a more active engagement role to support increased levels of investment in sustainable assets;
  • Supporting Housing and Social Infrastructure – supporting housing development and enabling stronger communities through infrastructure investment, in a partnership-led model to support these critical challenges for society; and
  • Supporting Social Inclusion – fostering inclusion, raising financial education and awareness, deepening colleague engagement and supporting communities to become more financially resilient.

This strategy aligns the Group’s business model with the transition to a low-carbon economy, supporting housing and infrastructure investment, and supporting social inclusion. It will also support the delivery of all aspects of the Group’s refreshed strategy across stronger relationships, simpler business, and resilient company. All of this will help us create a sustainable business model with long-term value creation for our stakeholders.