Financial Times: Third of biggest banks fail to sign up to climate initiative

15 October 2019

More than a third of the world’s top 75 banks by assets have still not declared their support for the TCFD, an initiative to get companies to calculate their exposure to climate risk and disclose this to investors. Although the TCFD is an initiative aimed at all businesses, support from banks is seen as crucial because of their role in financing activities that could contribute to global warming.

Twenty-eight of the world’s largest banks have not signed up to a climate change initiative backed by Bank of England governor Mark Carney that encourages businesses to disclose the risks global warming poses to them. The list of banks that do not yet support the TCFD is dominated by institutions in China, where the initiative has had little impact. But there are also some large lenders in the US and Europe that have not signed up, including Italy’s UniCredit, Germany’s Commerzbank and San Francisco-based lender Wells Fargo.

UniCredit said the bank would sign up in the “very near future” while Commerzbank said it was “on [its] agenda”.  Wells Fargo said: “We recognise the growing concerns about climate change and environmental sustainability, and we’re working to find solutions.”

Some large investors have joined Mr Carney in pushing for banks to do more to model their climate risk, from the impact of increased flooding on their mortgage books to whether new green policies could damage the business models and creditworthiness of their corporate clients.  Mr Carney last week warned in a speech that progress had been “uneven”, noting that even among supporters of the TCFD just 25 per cent had provided a “fuller set” of climate disclosures.

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