Bank Transition Plans: A Roadmap to Nowhere
…In this report, we analyze the disclosures of the 20 biggest European and United Kingdom (UK) banks to understand how far in the climate transition planning process they are. Transition plans are an essential tool to push financial institutions to break free from short-termism and align their activities with a 1.5°C trajectory. This role was notably acknowledged by European policymakers that required – through the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD)1 – major financial and non-financial companies to adopt and implement such plans.2 In parallel, financial supervisors recognize plans adopted in the financial sector will play an important role in ensuring financial stability.3 Additionally, transition plans are essential to substantiate climate-related claims from financial institutions and to avoid greenwashing.
While the EU Omnibus proposal could significantly weaken recently approved obligations regarding the adoption and implementation of transition plans,4 the relevance of these plans remains the same. Yet only a handful of banks have published reports titled “transition plans”, and these may not yet include all relevant information. In this context, our analysis covers a wide range of bank documents. By screening them and aggregating relevant information, we measure how banks fair on 60 criteria grouped into 5 thematic pillars representing essential constituents of a climate transition plan…
[Report names Barclays, BBVA, BNP Paribas, BPCE Group, Crédit Agricole, Crédit Mutuel, Deutsche Bank, DZ Bank, HSBC, ING, Intesa Sanpaolo, La Banque Postale, Lloyds Banking Group, NatWest, Rabobank, Santander, Société Générale, Standard Chartered, UBS, and UniCredit]