Category
Environment/Climate Change
Corporate Governance/Accountability
Managing Corporate Responsibility
Discipline
Environmental Management
Finance
This report pays particular attention to how corporate executives and board directors are addressing the governance systems that will be needed to minimize climate risks while maximizing investments in solutions that mitigate and help society adapt to climate change.
The report employs a “Climate Change Governance Checklist” to evaluate how 16 U.S. banks and 24 non-U.S. banks are addressing climate change through board oversight, management execution, public disclosure, greenhouse gas emissions accounting and strategic planning. In addition to the U.S. banks, the study includes 15 European, five Asian, one Brazilian and three Canadian banks in several different classes of financial services to provide a global crosssectional
analysis of the banking sector.
Among the highlights:
- The banks have
issued nearly 100 research reports on climate change and related
investment and regulatory strategies, more than half of them in 2007
alone;
- 34 of the 40 banks responded to the latest
climate-disclosure annual survey conducted by the Carbon Disclosure
Project, a nonprofit group that seeks information on climate risks and
opportunities from companies on behalf of investors;
- 28 of the banks have calculated and disclosed their GHG
emissions from operations and 24 have set some set some type of
internal reduction target;
- 29 of the banks reported their financial support of
alternative energy, eight of which alone have provided more than $12
billion of direct financing and investments in renewable energy and
other clean energy projects.
