Transition Financing Opportunities For Financial Institutions
Navigating climate change risk in collaboration with clients.
Managing the risks associated with climate change is a strategic priority for financial institutions with most globally systemically important banks (GSIBs) committing to achieve Net Zero emissions by 2050. As financial intermediaries in the economy financial institutions (banks, insurers, asset managers) have an influential role to play in directly and indirectly reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the near term (2030) through capital allocation decisions and hence the pace and trajectory of climate change on our societies.
What has the financial sector achieved to date?
Most global financial institutions have made a considerable investment in managing climate change by standing up specialist teams and skills to oversee the implementation of a climate change strategy, the establishment of governance and oversight structures that includes Board committees to monitor progress against Net Zero commitments made, have integrated climate risk into their enterprise risk management frameworks and started to unravel the relationships with other principal risks including credit risk, market risk, operational risks and commenced a process to measure baseline GHG emissions across Scope 1, 2 and 3 activities. In doing so financial institutions have sought to implement and adopt best practice guidelines to guide their Net Zero plans that have included those from the Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), implemented planning activities utilising the scenarios developed by the Network of Central Banks and Supervisors for the Greening of the Financial System (NGFS) and are utilising the guidelines from the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials to calculate GHG emissions and removals across all asset classes.
However, the path to Net Zero is not just about risk mitigation, it is equally about benefits to the biosphere, society and the real economy. It is also about commercial opportunity, the evolution of new technologies, the introduction of new financial services and products, new business models and value chains. Financial institutions have a unique opportunity to reap these rewards by forging closer relationships with their clients and working in a spirit of cooperative endeavor to uncover these during the transitional phase.
What is the opportunity for financial institutions?
There are 2 primary risks associated with climate change for financial institutions 1) Physical risks that are likely to impact people and property arising from extreme weather events and 2) transition risks impacting the bank, its suppliers and customers arising from changes in policy, technology and changing consumer/market sentiment. Through a careful and considered reallocation of capital, banks in particular can support their clients through an orderly transition to a low carbon economy minimizing the risk of stranded assets whilst preserving real economy performance that includes GDP growth, jobs, continuity of services, etc. In 2022 the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero published a useful framework to help financial institutions with their Net Zero transition financing strategies. It takes into consideration 4 scenarios:
Climate solutions – refers to financing of entities and or activities that enable the scaling of new and emerging technologies that can reduce, remove and eliminate GHG emissions. These are capable of accelerating economy wide GHG reductions e.g. production of green hydrogen or projects focused on regenerative agriculture.
Aligned – this includes financing activities and or enabling entities that are already aligned to the 1.5C pathway. Financial institutions need to promote their relationships and support of these firms in an effort to inculcate a culture of transition alignment. Good governance practices will require independent assessments to validate the climate transition plan and performance of these entities e.g. Natixis Corporate and Investment Bank introduced a Green Weighting Factor Tool that had a favourable risk weighted asset impact on ‘green projects’ and a punitive impact on those with negative environmental impacts. This helped shift the balance sheet exposure of Natixis in favor of environmentally friendly projects and clients and equally identified clients for exit that had no prospect of aligning with net zero objectives.
Aligning – these refer to committed entities that have plans in place to align to the 1.5C pathways. These entities need to be encouraged and supported to implement their Net Zero plans with appropriate financial products, services, advice and education e.g. HSBC implemented an aviation sector sustainability linked loan for Etihad of $1.2bn with specific emission reduction conditions that included financial penalties and incentives up to $5.5m.
Managed phaseout – this is a process of orderly phase out of high carbon emitting assets or activities. This can contribute to emission reductions in the portfolio and accelerate progress to Net Zero targets. This process is by no means straightforward and could prove to be complex particularly in developing markets where a fine balance needs to be maintained between phaseout and continued service delivery to communities dependent on them e.g. the decommissioning of a fossil fuel plant aligned to broader net zero committed timelines. Managed phaseout out strategies may also be complicated by the need for increased financing support in the short term to meet longer term emission reduction objectives.
The 4 scenarios outlined above are by no means mutually exclusive and a combination may exist in an entity or client at a point in time e.g. a client or entity considered ‘aligned’ may be developing new scalable emission reduction technologies and a client that is ‘aligning’ may have a ‘managed phaseout’ included in their net zero strategy. What is important though, is the need for alignment between the transition financing strategy and business strategy and risk appetite. The transition financing strategy also needs to be aligned to the financial institutions own Net Zero strategy as well.
Concluding remarks
Financial institutions have a strategic role to play in the reduction of GHG from both direct and indirect activities. An important component of Scope 3 emissions relates to clients and lending portfolios. Through proactive engagement and close collaboration with clients that includes innovative products and services, education, advice and appropriate allocation of transition financing, financial institutions can capitalize on emerging climate change market opportunities whilst steering clients and lending portfolios in a safe and orderly manner into a low carbon environment pre-empting and minimizing risks of stranded assets.