Climate Change Data

Environmental Metrics

Social Achievements

• Equity Bank’s All-Employee Celebration Day is a 15-year tradition for the Company, featuring a guest speaker, strategic alignment, and the collection and meeting of employees across departments for a full day’s activities.
• Equity employees also worked together on the video, “The Official Bank of You.”

Climate Goals & Targets

Environmental Challenges

• Costs arising from the environmental risks associated with making loans secured by real estate
• Inadequacies in our allowance for loan losses
• Inaccuracies or changes in the appraised value of real estate securing the loans that we originate
• The costs of integrating the businesses we acquire
• Challenges arising from unsuccessful attempts to expand into new geographic markets, products, or services
• A lack of liquidity resulting from decreased loan repayment rates, lower deposit balances, or other factors
• Restraints on the ability of Equity Bank to pay dividends to us
• The loss of our largest loan and depositor relationships
• Limitations on our ability to lend and to mitigate the risks associated with our lending activities
• Additional regulatory requirements and restrictions on our business
• Increased capital requirements imposed by banking regulators
• A failure in the internal controls we have implemented to address the risks inherent to the business of banking
• Inaccuracies in our assumptions about future events
• The departure of key members of our management personnel or our inability to hire qualified management personnel
• Disruptions, security breaches, or other adverse events, failures or interruptions in, or attacks on, our information technology systems
• Unauthorized access to nonpublic personal information of our customers
• Disruptions, security breaches, or other adverse events affecting the third-party vendors who perform several of our critical processing functions
• The occurrence of adverse weather or manmade events
• An increase in FDIC deposit insurance assessments
• An inability to keep pace with the rate of technological advances

Mitigation Strategies

• Our approach to credit management uses well-defined policies and procedures, disciplined underwriting criteria and ongoing risk management.
• We maintain an allowance for credit losses, which is an allowance established through a provision for loan losses charged to expense that represents management’s best estimate of probable incurred losses in our loan portfolio.
• Our risk management practices are overseen by the Chairmen of our audit and risk committees, who have more than 60 years of combined banking experience, and our Chief Risk Officer, who has more than 30 years of banking experience.
• We attempt to identify potential problem loans early in an effort to seek aggressive resolution of these situations before the loans become a loss, record any necessary charge-offs promptly and maintain adequate allowance levels for probable loan losses incurred in the loan portfolio.
• We utilize Flight, a customized customer relationship management system, to assign relationship officers to enhance our relationships with our customers and to identify and meet their particular needs.
• We have made and continue to make significant investments in our information technology systems and staff for our banking and lending operations and treasury management activities.
• We utilize a nationally recognized software vendor, and their support allows us to operate our data processing and core systems in-house.
• We recently enhanced our back-up site at a decentralized location. This back-up site provides for redundancy and disaster recovery capabilities.

Supply Chain Management

Climate-Related Risks & Opportunities

Awards & Recognition

• One of the “Best Places to Work” by the Wichita Business Journal
• “Best in Business” winner by the Wichita Business Journal

Environmental Metrics

ESG Focus Areas

• Environmental Sustainability
• Community Involvement
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
• Governance

Environmental Achievements

• 48% of Equity accounts utilize eStatements (paperless)
• Nearly 400 trees saved via shredding and recycling at headquarters
• 2,790 cubic feet of old technology sent to e-cycle
• One free-standing ATM facility powered by solar energy
• 14% of facilities utilize LED lighting
• $30,000 spent on recycled and eco-friendly office supplies

Social Achievements

• 944 hours of Community Volunteer Hours reported by employees
• $2.3 million in community sponsorships and donations
• Over 3,000 books donated and 21 classrooms sponsored through Bank on Reading program
• 16 virtual readings attracting 13,427 views
• Launched WeCare Volunteer initiative
• Bilingual branch to better serve Spanish-speaking clients
• Facilitated 7,535 PPP loans totaling $701 million, impacting an estimated 95,000 employees
• Facilitated $284 million of Main Street Lending loans

Governance Achievements

• Adopted additional policies for sound Equity Bancshares, Inc. governance and Equity Bank governance
• Modified all executive agreements to include double trigger change of control standards
• Adopted annual shareholder “Say on Pay” vote
• Adopted minimum stock ownership requirement for executive-level employees
• Adopted Compensation Recoupment Policy
• Updated all committee charters and guidelines

Climate Goals & Targets

Environmental Challenges

• COVID-19 pandemic

Mitigation Strategies

• Implemented precautions to safeguard team and community well-being
• Provided pandemic-related paid time off
• Facilitated PPP and Main Street Lending loans
• Provided financial assistance to customers (Skip a Pay Program, rebuild accounts, waived ATM fees)
• Implemented workstation distancing, flexible work arrangements, and a grace period for vacation usage
• Provided supplies (disinfectant, thermometers, masks), daily health questionnaires, and on-site vaccine clinics

Supply Chain Management

Responsible Procurement

• Purchasing recycled and eco-friendly office supplies

Climate-Related Risks & Opportunities

Awards & Recognition

• Wichita Business Journal’s Best Places to Work Award
• Wichita Business Journal’s Diversity and Inclusion Award (three times)