Climate action

In 2019, BNG Bank wholeheartedly subscribed to the Climate Commitment for the Financial Sector to achieve a 43% reduction of CO₂ emissions of its loan portfolio by 2030 – a target that chimes in with the worldwide Paris Climate Agreement. Even before that, in 2018, BNG Bank had already decided to exclude all forms of fossil fuel extraction from financing. We may tighten our exclusion policy even further in future – for instance, if clients’ climate performance falls short of the effort required to achieve the CO₂e reduction target. 2019 was also the first year in which we mapped out the CO₂ emission levels of our credit portfolio. In that connection we joined the Platform for Carbon Accounting Financials (PCAF), which develops methodologies to calculate CO₂e emissions by financial institutions. According to the PCAF methodology, clients’ direct and indirect emissions are attributed to the bank based on a set of comprehensive valuation rules. Annually we report on our clients’ progress on the assessed indicators and on the reduction of CO₂e emissions associated with the loan portfolio. 

As a next step we published our Climate Plan, ‘Going Green’ (pdf, 14.5 MB), in December 2022, in which we outline how we will work to bring emissions from our LOAN portfolio and those arising from our own operations in line with the 1.5°C target of the Paris Climate Agreement in the coming years. We will submit OUR reduction targets to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) to make sure they are tested against the latest scientific insights in the field of climate change.

‘Going Green’, BNG Bank’s Climate Plan

To achieve our objectives, we focus on emission reductions in the four biggest sectors of our bank's operations: social housing associations, municipalities, healthcare and education. Concentrating on the direct and indirect emissions caused by the energy consumption of real estate in these sectors.

Sector-level targets

In ‘Going Green’, our Climate Plan, we have set clear targets at sector level. For each sector, we describe the actions we expect our clients to take to reduce their CO₂e emissions and motivate them to create an emissions reduction road map, if they have not done so already. If clients have not formulated an action plan by 2025, then in future for every new real estate financing application of € 5 million or more they will have to include a plan showing that the investment is in line with the Paris Climate Agreement.

Our own operations

BNG Bank has measured the CO₂e emissions of its own operations in accordance with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG) since 2010. BNG Bank’s office building has had an ‘A’ energy label since 2017 (amply meeting the required ‘C’ label for buildings in 2023). Also, the bank has received ESG ratings of ‘C+ (Prime)’ by ISS ESG, ‘11.0 Low Risk’ by Sustainalytics, ‘AA’ by MSCI and and ‘Advanced’ from Vigeo Eiris.

Still, we are determined to reduce emissions generated by our own organisation even further. A large-scale renovation of our office building will take place in 2024, which will involve making our building even more sustainable. Our ambition is to also include our mobility-related emissions in this Climate Plan as of next year. We already encourage our employees to travel by public transport and by bicycle.