Five lenders led by Barclays PLC and Handelsbanken AB have become founding members of a group that aims to offer financial support to businesses working to help the UK deliver a carbon-neutral economy.
The Bankers for NetZero initiative — which also includes Triodos Bank NV, Ecology Building Society and digital lender Tide Platform Ltd — is to explore ways to help businesses reduce risks involved in shifting to more environmentally friendly and sustainable practices.
The British government has committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050.
“Banks have been a bit late to the game on climate action,” said Nigel Topping, the British government’s high level climate action champion for the COP26 climate talks, welcoming the launch of the banking initiative.
The group held an inaugural online meeting on Thursday last week that focused on retrofitting the built environment, a major source of carbon emissions, and the support banks could offer.
Legal & General Group PLC, one of the UK’s top real-estate investors, earlier this month urged the British government to legislate to improve transparency on how much energy commercial buildings use and to help businesses switch to renewable energy.
Bankers for NetZero hopes to set out recommendations, or a white paper, this year on accelerating the UK’s transition.
Bankers for NetZero is run in partnership with Volans, a research and advisory firm, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Fair Business Banking and Re:Pattern, a strategy consultancy specializing in sustainable finance.
The initiative is engaging with the Bank of England, the British Financial Conduct Authority and the British Competition & Markets Authority. It is backed by the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative and the British Green Finance Institute.
“The transition to a low carbon economy is one of the most complex challenges we face, and it will require close collaboration between both the private and public sector to get there,” Barclays chairman Nigel Higgins said.
Separately, Microsoft Corp, Nike Inc, Starbucks Corp, Unilever NV and Danone SA are teaming up in a new consortium devoted to sharing resources and tactics for cutting carbon emissions, bringing together the efforts of some of the biggest global companies that have pledged to take action against climate change.
The group, called Transform to Net Zero, also includes automaker Mercedes-Benz AG; Danish shipping giant AP Moller-Maersk A/S; Indian information technology firm Wipro Ltd; and Natura & Co, the Brazilian cosmetics firm that owns Avon.
The alliance, which plans to recruit other companies, is to work with the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund and share information on cutting emissions, investing in carbon-reduction technology and coordinating on public policy goals.
Microsoft in January announced that it plans to be carbon negative by 2030, and the company allocated US$1 billion to a climate-innovation fund to invest in ways to reduce and remove carbon emissions, one of the most aggressive corporate plans.
By 2050, the company plans to remove the equivalent of all of its emissions since Microsoft’s founding in 1975.
Amazon.com Inc has also made a carbon-neutral pledge and recruited other companies to join.
Both technology giants have come under fire from climate activists for continuing to provide cloud-computing services to large oil and gas producers.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
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