HSBC tops first ever ranking of banks on climate change strategies
Ceres report gives HSBC and other European banks top scores; Citigroup and Bank of America post highest US bank scores.
| Bank category | Highest Sscorers | Lowest scorers |
|
Diversified banks (20 Total) |
HSBC (70 points) ABN AMRO (66) Barclays (61) HBOS (61) Deutsche (60) Citigroup (59) Bank of America (56) |
Bank of Nova Scotia (26 points) TD Bank Financial (25) Mizuho Financial (24) Banco Santander (22) Banco do Brasil (14) Industrial Bank of China (8) Bank of China (4) |
|
Investment banks (5 Total) |
Goldman Sachs (53) Merrill Lynch (52) Morgan Stanley (49) |
Lehman Brothers (26) Bear Stearns (0) |
|
Asset managers (6 Total) |
State Street Corp (36) | Franklin Resources (1) |
The report provides much evidence that many banks are responding to climate change through equity research and new product offerings, with European banks being in the forefront and many US banks following closely behind.
Many of the positive actions have come in the past 12 to 18 months, especially in regard to disclosure, internal emissions management and financial support for clean energy.
Yet for all of the positive momentum, many of the 40 banks have done little or nothing to elevate climate change as a governance priority - a trend that cuts across European, North American and Asian banks alike.
For example:
- Only a dozen of the 40 banks have board-level involvement and all but one of those firms are non-US-based;
- Only a half-dozen banks say they are formally calculating carbon risks in their loan portfolios, and only one of the 40 banks - Bank of America - has announced a specific target to reduce greenhouse emissions associated with the utility portion of its lending portfolio;
- No bank has set a policy to avoid investments in carbon-intensive projects such as conventional coal-fired power plants or Canadian tar sands.
Read: Corporate Governance and Climate Change: The Banking Sector
Find company profiles and summary information on the Ceres website.
