Committing to a sustainable economy
Supporting the transitionWhile the COP 27 will take place in November 2022, in Egypt, the climate emergency is becoming increasingly urgent. The findings in the 6th report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are alarming: at the current rate of development, global warming could reach 2.7°C by the end of the century, above the target set by the Paris Agreement, well below 2°C. In line with its ambition to be a leader in sustainable finance, BNP Paribas is making the transition to a more environmentally‑friendly economy a global commitment. In addition to designing responsible financial products and services, we support a variety of initiatives and innovations to address the major challenges of climate change with a clear objective: to finance a carbon‑neutral economy by 2050. Two Group experts share how they bring our commitment to life on a daily basis, by supporting their corporate clients, regardless of their size, in their transition.
Head of the Low‑Carbon Transition Group (LCTG), Corporate & Institutional Banking
What does accelerating the transition of our customers to a sustainable and low‑carbon economy mean in practice?
At BNP Paribas, we position ourselves as the preferred partner of our customers in their transition to a low‑carbon economy. As the leading European bank for corporates and financial institutions, we have developed a full range of expertise dedicated to the transition and are able to offer a wide range of strategies to direct financial flows towards projects and corporate clients that are building this low‑carbon world. BNP Paribas decided to create the Low‑Carbon Transition Group (LCTG) in October 2021 to mobilise our resources for accelerating this transition.
What exactly is the role of the Low‑Carbon Transition Group?
It is a dedicated and agile organisation that capitalises on the Group’s leadership in capital markets and sustainable finance to support our customers around the world at all stages of their transition process.
Our mission is to advise them on the evolution of their business models and the alignment of their capital structure with the challenges imposed by the transition, to help them offset their residual carbon footprint and support them in the transition of their daily activities. To this end, the LCTG intends, by 2025, to bring together the expertise of 250 international professionals and capitalise on a broader set of skills within the banking business. It also provides our customers, key accounts, start‑ups and institutional investors with our banking and extra‑banking expertise.
What are the first actions of the LCTG?
We focus on three key topics: clean energy, sustainable mobility and new decarbonisation technologies. Regarding the first, BNP Paribas doubled its financing for renewable energies between 2016 and 2020, in four years instead of the planned five, by supporting the first offshore wind farms in France and the largest offshore wind farm in the world off the coast of the United Kingdom. In the field of sustainable mobility, our support for the European automotive battery gigafactory project Northvolt, in Sweden, is another clear example of progress. We are currently interested in the considerable potential of hydrogen — by studying the opportunity to finance local ecosystems using green hydrogen — and CO2 capture and storage projects. As many projects as there are sustainable solutions for our future!
250INTERNATIONAL
PROFESSIONALS
This is the number of experts that the Group wants to mobilise in the Low‑Carbon Transition Group, by 2025, to accelerate the transition of our customers: 150 professionals from advisory, capital markets and industry teams currently involved in the low‑carbon transition and 100 new recruitments.