Triodos Bank exits NZBA after alliance drops 1.5°C target
Dutch lender Triodos Bank has announced its decision to leave the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), following a majority vote among the network’s 120 members to ease conditions for membership
Earlier this week, the NZBA confirmed that its members had “overwhelmingly” voted in favour of an overhaul of its framework, effectively abandoning its commitment to a 1.5°C target.
Under the previous framework, alliance members were required to align their investment and lending activities with the goals of the Paris Agreement.
The new framework offers NZBA members more flexibility, by acknowledging “a wider range of net-zero pathways that align with the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement to limit global temperature rise to well below 2°C and to strive for 1.5°C”.
The NZBA stated that this added flexibility would help banks with exposure to a range of markets and sectors to manage targets and transitions across their balance sheets, while still incorporating net-zero by 2050 pathways that involve low or no overshoot of the 1.5°C target.
Expressing its disappointment with the decision, Triodos Bank said the new framework had “lowered the climate ambition of the alliance” and voiced “deep concern over a shift away from binding agreements”.
“We believe that remaining a member under these less stringent guidelines and lowered ambitions, and also seeing that a lot of what we have achieved over the years is being watered down, would not align with our own climate ambition and commitment to combatting climate change,” the bank said.
Triodos added that it had decided to increase its own emissions reduction ambition, targeting a cut in its financed emissions from 32 per cent to 42 per cent by 2030. The lender also intends to continue working with other banks on climate action, focusing on alternative “meaningful” alliances at European and global level, including the Global Alliance for Banking on Values, the European Banking Federation and UK Finance, it said.
