Societe Generale plays a leading role in a number of initiatives that support sectoral net-zero target setting for banks. Alongside leading industry and climate organisations and other major lenders, it participates in expert organisations such as the Poseidon Principles, the Hydrogen Council, the Sustainable Steel Principles, the Sustainable Aluminium Finance Framework, NZBA, and the Pegasus Guidelines. Their goal is to promote consistency and transparency in reporting and measuring progress against climate targets, to facilitate comparability across industries, and to demonstrate how banks can integrate climate decision-making into portfolio management and lending decisions.
Some initiatives focus on a particular sector, while others, such as the Hydrogen Council, comprise member companies from across the industrial and energy sectors involved in a particular value chain.
These external engagements complement an internal Societe Generale programme called “The Shift” that brings together bankers from different business lines and geographies to build expertise on decarbonisation in different sectors and across value chains and to identify emerging corporate leaders that are developing new low-carbon solutions.
The expertise developed across these external and internal engagements is supporting Societe Generale to better understand its client’s needs and challenges, enhance its advisory offering on corporate transition strategies, identify business opportunities, and provide better financing solutions for its clients.
Read more on Societe Generale’s net-zero targets here.
This case study was originally published in the Net-Zero Banking Alliance 2024 Progress Report (October 2024).
Disclaimer: NZBA shares case studies to promote member banks’ awareness of new approaches, tools, products, services, and transactions related to financing the transition to net zero. Featuring a case study naming a particular bank does not represent an endorsement of all actions from that bank.