"Scandinavian banks poured $67 billion into the fossil fuel industry since Paris", 1 Feb 2020

Since the signing of the Paris Climate Agreement at the end of 2015, ten Scandinavian banks have provided US$ 67.3 billion in credit, including lending and underwriting, to companies and projects in the coal, oil and gas sector. (1) In addition, as of June 30 2020, these ten banks held US$ 7.1 billion in shares in fossil fuel companies.

These figures are released in a new report, "Banking on Thin Ice: Exposing Scandinavian Bank Finance for Fossil Fuels", published today by BankTrack, Fair Finance Guide Sweden, Fair Finance Guide Norway, Oxfam IBIS and ActionAid Denmark. The report provides a first-of-its-kind comprehensive overview of not only Scandinavian bank finance for the fossil fuel industry but also the climate policy commitments each bank has put in place...

It also raises serious questions about the sincerity of the climate commitments these banks have made when they all signed on to the Principles for Responsible Banking, which commits them to align their business activities with the goals of the Paris Agreement. Meeting these goals means global CO2 emissions should decline to effectively zero by 2050. However, none of the banks have so far made a concrete commitment to achieve group-wide zero or net-zero emissions in their financing activities by 2050.

The report provides a detailed analysis of the policies that all banks currently have in place to restrict financing for the fossil fuel industry, using the methodology of the “Banking on Climate Change” report to assign a maximum of 200 points for the quality of these policies. With nine of the ten banks scoring less than 25 out of 200 points there is a clear need to strengthen policy commitments on fossil fuel financing. Only SEB scores higher, with 75.5 points out of 200...

(1) The ten banks covered in the report are: Danske Bank, DNB, Jyske Bank, Nordea, Nykredit, Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken (SEB), SpareBank 1 SR-Bank, Svenska Handelsbanken, Swedbank and Sydbank.

*Note: The results of the assessments were shared with the banks for input and verification before publication. Where banks responded to confirm or correct the assessment, reference of this is made in the source information.