Mission Statement Shred-Up, Part 1

Mission statements are such funny things. They can summarise everything important about an organisation, or they can say nothing at all.

The following mission statements are from two Aussie banks.

1. ‍To inspire and empower our customers to use their money to create a world where people and the planet thrive.
2. Empowering our people and the communities in which we work and making sustainable, transparent and balanced business decisions.

Pretty similar wording considering how different the two banks are.

One belongs to Commonwealth Bank, one of Australia’s biggest banks and also one of the largest financial contributors to fossil fuel projects (over $14bn since 2016). The other belongs to Bank Australia, one of several “ethical” banks who fund projects that are basically the opposite of fossil fuel projects.

Not sure if you can tell which belongs to who, feel free to guess.

Tomorrow I’ll speculate how each of these can be used as a filter for decision-making, who might be doing a decent job of that (spoiler, it’s not CommBank), and how you can replicate it.