NatWest Group has become the first major UK bank to sign up to the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials.
Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials is collaboration between financial institutions worldwide to enable harmonised assessments and disclosures of greenhouse gas emissions financed by loans and investments.
Katie Murray, Chief Financial Officer of NatWest Group, commented on the announcement: “We are determined to lead on the collaboration and cooperation that is so critical to tackling the causes of climate change and transitioning to a low carbon economy.
“We are therefore delighted to be joining forces with other leading financial institutions to develop methods for financial institutions to transparently disclose the environmental impact of their financing.”
In February this year, NatWest set out an ambition to become a leading bank in the UK & Republic of Ireland helping to address the climate challenge.
As part of its Purpose-led strategy, NatWest Group set itself a challenge to at least halve the climate impact of its financing activity by 2030, with the intention to do what is necessary to achieve alignment with the 2015 Paris Agreement.
In 2015, fourteen Dutch financial institutions created Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials under the leadership of ASN Bank.
The initiative was launched via a Dutch Carbon Pledge calling on the negotiators at the Paris Climate Summit in 2015 to take ambitious steps while the committed financial institutions take their share in delivering an essential shift to a low carbon economy, starting with measuring and disclosing the greenhouse gas emissions of their loans and investments.
Since then, more financial institutions from the Netherlands have joined forces to develop and implement open-source methodologies to measure the greenhouse gas emissions of all asset classes within their loans and investments portfolios.
With nearly 70 banks and investors from five continents, the group is rapidly expanding in North America, Latin America, Europe, Africa and Asia-Pacific.
