The world’s best bank for corporate responsibility: Scotiabank

In 2023, Scotiabank’s signature corporate responsibility programme, ScotiaRise, began to hit its stride. This is a 10-year initiative launched in 2021, and it is already having a demonstrable impact in the communities where the $500 million planned investment is being deployed.

The aim of ScotiaRise is to strengthen economic resilience among disadvantaged people and groups. Last year, the bank supported more than 200 community partners, with $42.2 million in global community investments, up 24% from the previous year.

Total investment to date is now $102 million, but Meigan Terry, who has been leading the bank’s environmental, social and governance strategy since she joined in 2018, is wary of providing these dollar amounts without context.

“What we have done with our ScotiaRise programme is to move away from talking about just the dollars we invest to reporting on the positive social outcomes we create,” she says.