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The green bank you should be using

Words by Smiley Team

Days into climate negotiations at COP26, Triodos Bank announced it aims to greatly reduce its emissions from investments while investing in projects that offer natural ways of extracting carbon from the air.

In doing so, it hopes to reach net-zero “as soon as possible”, or by 2035 at the very latest.

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Explaining the decision, chief executive officer, Jeroen Rijpkema, said: “The climate emergency is increasingly affecting people’s lives and impacting nature: wildfires, heat waves, heavy flooding, the loss of biodiversity - concrete proof of the need to urgently reduce greenhouse gas emissions well before 2050. We are in the decisive decade.

"That is why Triodos Bank has set the high ambition to be net-zero by 2035.”

‘Inspiration for our co-workers’

To reach its targets, the bank intends to support households reduce their carbon footprints by offering residential mortgages that help make homes more energy-efficient. 

It will help finance more renewable energy, along with energy storage mechanisms and green jobs. Its capital will also focus on organic, regenerative agriculture, sequestering carbon and restoring biodiversity.

Looking back to when the Paris Agreement was signed at COP25, Jacco Minnaar, the bank’s chief commercial officer said: “In 2015, on the train to Paris, Triodos Bank co-founded PCAF, now the main framework for financial institutions to disclose their carbon footprint. We now need ambitious targets and faster action for the ultimate goal: a net-zero economy.” 

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The bank's goals will build on 40 years of them operating as a comparatively eco-friendly commercial bank.

“Even for a bank built with sustainability at its core and boasting an already low carbon intensity portfolio,” he said, “[net-zero] is not an easy task. Our target will serve as inspiration for our co-workers and all stakeholders that work with us to act faster and develop more robust plans as to how we, and ultimately the financial industry as a whole, will achieve net-zero ambitions.”

As one of the world’s first banks to produce an environmental report, Triodos Bank is attempting to set an example in the financial world, carefully monitoring its carbon footprint in a CO2 management system.

This article aligns with the following UN SDGs

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