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Banks and insurers were asked about their climate goals and their implementation. The climate strike movement is not satisfied with most financial institutions, but its method is simple and therefore has loopholes.
Climate Youth protest at a CS branch in Lausanne, November 2018.
Photo: PD
Which banks and insurance companies are the most climate-friendly? The Climate Strike movement wants to answer this question with a new classification. The list is based on a survey in which financial institutions must evaluate themselves.
However, the survey remains approximate, so the ranking serves primarily to “increase pressure to act on the Swiss financial center,” as Klimastrik himself writes. Due to the survey method that a simple survey uses, the list is less suitable for making verifiable statements about the climate impact of a financial institution’s business activities.
Only five institutes received the top rating of 6: Alternative Bank Switzerland, Forma Futura, Free Community Bank, Globalance and Oikocredit. Only three banks received the second best rating of 5: the Basellandschaftliche Kantonalbank, the private bank Rahn + Bodmer and the Graubündner Kantonalbank. “The urgency of the climate crisis is not sufficiently recognized by most financial institutions,” Klimastrik writes.
The survey is based on three questions, each with three possible answers. The first refers to the transparency of whether a financial institution is disclosing financial flows. In point two, banks and insurers had to indicate whether they intend to align their business in such a way that net CO₂ emissions can be reduced to zero by 2030, or whether they will not aim for this goal until 2050 or not at all. The third point refers to the question of whether an institute wants to stop financing fossil fuels and how quickly.
“The most important criterion for a good score is a commitment to the net zero goal and the abandonment of fossil fuel financing,” explains climate strike spokesperson Stephanie Wyss. Six institutes are committed to the net zero goal by 2030, ten more to achieve the goal by 2050. This shows that the financial center as a whole is still a long way from implementing the Paris Agreement, writes Climate Strike.
No industry standards
Spokeswoman Wyss admits that the questionnaire is “a bit black and white.” It is easier for a cantonal bank to commit to withdrawing from coal financing, because many cantonal banks have never financed a coal mine. The big banks with their international capital market and financing business are in a completely different starting position.
There is also currently no standard for objectively determining the climate impact of financial institutions. The climate strike also admits: “It is difficult to classify financial institutions in terms of their compatibility with the climate.” Working in comparable weather disclosures they are progressing slowly.
Of 76 banks and insurers surveyed, only 22 completed the questionnaire, and the climate strike had an exchange with twelve other institutes.
Therefore, the Swiss Bankers Association coldly says that it is taking note of the results. The results would not change the fact that the Swiss financial center is “clearly committed to the Paris climate agreement.”
