Barclays tries to catch up with rival HSBC
2022.12.14 03:28
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Barclays tries to catch up with rival HSBC
Budrigannews.com – Barclays, a British investment bank, its head of sustainable investment told Reuters that as part of efforts to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy, it has increased its sustainable and transition finance target to $1 trillion by 2030.
With this move, Barclays moves ahead of its rival HSBC and JPMorgan (NYSE:), which both stated that they intend to contribute up to $1 trillion to businesses in 2020 to assist with their transition. which has set a target for sustainable funding of $2.5 trillion by 2030.
Barclays’ new objective, which will support everything from environmentally friendly power and green home loans to reasonable lodging, denotes a more than five-overlay increment from the bank’s past funding objective of $150 billion by 2025.
Campaigners and politicians alike are raising concerns that the banking sector is not doing enough to manage the risks posed by global warming and support the real economy’s transition to cleaner energy sources.
Recent climate talks have confirmed that finance is not moving quickly enough, and U.N. climate scientists warned earlier this year that the world was running out of time to limit the rise in global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average.
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As of September 30, Barclays had assets totaling 1.7 trillion pounds ($2.1 trillion). The $1 trillion figure will include direct lending and so-called “facilitated” finance, which it helps businesses raise in the debt and equity capital markets.
Despite the fact that Barclays will report on its progress and its investors will be able to judge it, climate activist groups have criticized these targets for being too broad in what they count toward the total and falling outside the purview of formal regulatory oversight.
Through its Sustainable Impact Capital initiative, Barclays also stated that it would increase the amount of its own capital it invests in climate start-ups to 500 million pounds by 2027, up from 175 million pounds by 2025.
Daniel Hanna, the bank’s global head of sustainable finance, stated, “We are helping to drive the transition and drive financing to where it is really needed, both to decarbonise high-emitting sectors and to scale up the next wave of climate technologies that are going to be required to decarbonise industries and create green jobs.”
Hanna left a similar position at Standard Chartered to join Barclays (OTC:). in the past year.
Barclays has already established targets for a number of high-emitting industries, including energy, power, and steel, as a member of the Net Zero Banking Alliance, an industry group that aims to reduce the emissions associated with their financing.
At its annual meeting, Barclays was confronted with protests from activists regarding its lending to the fossil fuel industry after it issued a warning in March that the conflict in Ukraine could hinder the company’s ability to achieve its targets for reducing carbon emissions.
80.8% of shareholders’ votes supported Barclays’ climate strategy in spite of protests.
According to a report that was released in March of this year and was written by activist group Rainforest Action Network and others, Barclays was the most active European bank and the seventh largest lender to the fossil fuel industry between the years 2016 and 2021.
The report’s calculations have been contested by some banks, but it did note that Barclays’ financing was decreasing, with $19 billion in funding in 2021, down from $28 billion the year before.
