Aligning our portfolios on a “net zero” emissions trajectory
Our Group is committed to aligning our financing portfolios with a carbon neutrality trajectory. We are also one of the very first banking groups to have set short-, medium-, and long-term milestones for achieving this alignment.
In our new 2021-2024 strategic plan, we have identified the environmental transition as a major challenge and a growth driver.
To limit the climate impact of our financing, investment and insurance activities, and gradually to align our portfolios on a Net Zero emissions trajectory, we are taking the following steps:
- Development of systems for measuring carbon emissions and monitoring the climate trajectory of all the Group's portfolios
- Development of our system for identifying and managing climate, physical, and transition risks to which our customers and our own activities are exposed, with a view to continuous improvement,
- Phasing out our most greenhouse gas-intensive activities through adapted sectoral policies.
Regarding its phasing-out measures, Groupe BPCE aims to align its behavior and business practices with the 2015 Paris Agreement, and to reduce progressively its exposure to thermal coal to zero by 2030 for its activities in the European Union and OECD countries, and by 2040 for its activities in the rest of the world. This timetable is aligned with the International Energy Agency's Sustainable Development Scenario-SDS.
Since May 18, 2020, Natixis has undertaken to discontinue financing shale oil and gas exploration and production projects worldwide. In addition, Natixis will no longer finance companies whose activity is more than 25% based on the exploration and production of shale oil and gas. Groupe BPCE has committed to cease financing, as of January 2022, dedicated projects and companies whose exploration and production of unconventional hydrocarbons (shale oil, shale gas, and oil sands) exceeds 25%.
Since November 2018, Natixis has published an oil & gas sector policy detailing the terms of its commitment to cease financing oil onshore or offshore exploration and production projects in the Arctic. This commitment to protect the Arctic reinforces the position taken by Ostrum and Mirova (affiliates of Natixis Investment Managers) that, since 2016, have been leading a group of investors, signatories to a statement calling for the protection of this geographical area from oil exploration activities, as well as for the respect of national commitments to fight climate change in this particularly hydrocarbon-rich part of the world.