• SIX, environmental NGO Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), investors Australian Ethical and Ethinvest, plus 196 shareholders, have filed a shareholder resolution on nature risk at Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX:CBA). 
• The resolution calls on CBA to disclose a pathway to deforestation-free finance. The bank will now have to send the resolution to all their shareholders, for discussion and voting at the company Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Wednesday 14 October. 
• The SIX community in Sydney are invited to join ACF’s Resolution Launch Party outside CommBank’s headquarters on Wednesday 19 August.

This week SIX, environmental NGO Australian Conservation Foundation, investors Australian Ethical and Ethinvest, plus 196 shareholders filed a shareholder resolution on nature risk at Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

An enormous thank you to the shareholders in our community who joined this campaign and far surpassed the 100 shareholders required to lodge a resolution! 

This amount of support strengthens the resolution’s demands by demonstrating to the bank that many of their own shareholders care enough about protecting our forests and wildlife to contribute their shares to this campaign. 

Banks like CBA contribute to deforestation through the customers they lend to and whether these customers are involved in deforestation. CBA was linked to 4,280 hectares of deforestation through financing between July 2023 and 2024, according to a report by ACF. 

With Australia holding the unhappy title of “a global deforestation hotspot”, this big bank’s big contribution cannot go unnoticed.

Help to share the news on SIX's socials! And to our community in Sydney, you're invited to celebrate on Wednesday 19 August with ACF's Resolution Launch Party.

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Stopping financed deforestation has been a consistent conversation between concerned shareholders and community members, and this shareholder resolution is a reflection of the bank’s inaction. 

ACF have been engaging with the company for years - ensuring that consideration of the destruction of forests, bush, wildlife and waterways, through their lending, is front and centre for the big bank. 

In 2025, CBA would have been watching closely as a first-year deforestation resolution that SIX, ACF, Aus Ethical and Melior Impact Investment lodged at National Australian Bank (ASX:NAB) was supported by 13.9% of shareholders. 

This was well surpassed soon after as 22.7% of shareholders at ANZ Group (ASX:ANZ) voted against the board’s wishes and in support of deforestation action. 

Now it is CBA that is being held to account for their lack of action on stopping deforestation. 

Throughout 2026, SIX and ACF have been engaging with investors and CBA, through the development of our Corporate Engagement Guide - suggesting steps the bank could take to address the links between deforestation and its financing. 

In meetings with CBA, we’ve been pleased to hear the bank reveal they have been considering the steps we outlined in the guide. This demonstrates another way that shareholders can engage with big companies to shift them on big issues like stopping destruction of nature.

In CBA’s recent annual reporting, the bank:

• Outlines the geo-spatial mapping they have done to better understand the extent of deforestation tied to their lending, and
• Discloses the extent to which CBA believes they are exposed to deforestation. 

SIX and our partners had intended to submit another resolution asking the bank to disclose the extent to which they were exposed, through their lending, to deforestation. While there are some issues with the analysis, we decided this was a resolution we did not need to file after all and we could take these issues up directly with the bank.

Sometimes the best resolution is the one you do not need to file! Now we can focus our efforts on getting the bank to take tangible action on its exposure.

The fact that we lodged one resolution, not two, is a powerful demonstration of the progress that shareholder pressure can create on gaining more transparency into big issues like the protection of Australia’s unique forests and wildlife. 

But it’s not enough. 

As stated by ACF’s Policy Analyst - Corporate Responsibility Max Hamra, the bank’s annual reporting shows CBA has “found deforestation, noted the impacts, but doesn’t intend to act on them.”

Hence our second resolution urging CBA to set out a pathway to ensuring their financing is deforestation-free.  

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Community group ACF People Power Sydney are hosting a celebration next Wednesday 19 August outside CBA’s office. 

For the SIX community in Sydney, it would be great if you can join to keep up the pressure on CBA and connect with others who helped make this campaign moment possible.

All are welcome, regardless of whether you are a CBA shareholder or not. 

There will be music, banners and party blowers, drawing attention from bank staff and passers-by to the forest destruction the bank is enabling. Afterwards everyone is welcome to head to the nearby pub for a drink and bite to eat. 

As for the other big banks, they are still in our sights. To lodge resolutions we need 100 shareholders in the other banks (ANZ, NAB and WBC) at least two months prior to the companies’ AGMs. 

Here’s how to get involved. 

• If you are not yet a shareholder but want to become one, the SIX app makes it easy to join the campaign.
• If you already hold shares in these companies in the SIX app, there is no need to do anything further - you’ve already joined the campaign as a supporting shareholder, so thank you.
• If you hold big four bank shares on another trading platform, simply take 5 minutes to fill in SIX’s agency agreement to join the campaign. If you’ve previously filled in this form with SIX, there is no need to fill it in again unless your shares have changed (i.e. you have bought or sold in the banks).