Financing the transition
The financial sector has an important role to play in helping to address climate change. Low-carbon technologies, infrastructure and capacity must be scaled up to meet growing energy demands and for the world to reach net zero – a global transformation to a low-carbon economy is expected to require investment of $4.3trn per year by 2030¹.
The scale of our business gives us the opportunity to help finance the energy transition – to use our global reach, products, expertise and position in the global economy to work with our clients, including those in the Energy sector, as they transition to a low-carbon business model.
$1trn Sustainable and Transition Financing
In light of the progress made against our previously announced targets, and after a strategic review of the Group’s capabilities, market demand and growth opportunities, in December 2022, Barclays announced a target to facilitate $1trn of Sustainable and Transition Financing between 2023 and the end of 2030.
This followed our two previously announced targets: to deliver £150bn of social, environmental, and sustainability-linked financing by 2025, which we surpassed in 2021, and to deliver £100bn of green financing by 2030, which we surpassed in 2023.
The $1trn target encompasses the green, social, transition and broader sustainability-linked financing requirements of clients including corporates, governments and the public sector, financial institutions and consumers. Financing of climate and environmental solutions including green mortgages, energy efficient technology and renewable energy, as well as financing for broader social and sustainability work, including sustainability-linked structures and areas such as affordable housing, will all count towards the target.
$123.8bn of Sustainable and Transition Financing mobilised as at H1 2024. This mobilisation in a challenging market demonstrates our continued focus on supporting our clients on their sustainability journeys.
£500m investment in climate-tech
Through our Sustainable Impact Capital portfolio, we aim to fill growth stage funding gaps to help accelerate and scale catalytic and strategic solutions to environmental challenges, with an enhanced focus on decarbonisation technologies that are enabling transition within carbon intensive sectors.
Our Sustainable Impact Capital portfolio has a mandate to invest up to £500m of equity capital in climate-tech start-ups between 2020 and 2027, helping to accelerate the transition towards a low-carbon economy.
Since launch in 2020, our investments have supported many aspects of climate-tech innovation, from property retrofit solutions to long-duration energy storage and hydrogen technologies. We have invested £166m in over 20 innovative companies as at H1 2024.
The investment mandate was increased from £175m to £500m in December 2022, reflecting the success to date. Find out more here.
Find out more here on our Sustainable Impact Capital Programme page.
Thought-leadership
Our approach to ESG Research is differentiated through broad-based engagement with ESG issues and higher quality insights with our investor clients.
The ESG Research team works closely with coverage teams to identify and analyse material ESG opportunities and risks and to integrate ESG into their analysis and recommendations. The team also analyses how investors measure and consider ESG factors in the investment process to help asset managers structure their portfolios and investment decisions. There have been over 475 ESG-focused research reports published in 2023. During 2023, ESG Research also hosted and contributed content to many client events around the world – including Barclays’ first Sustainable Finance conference in New York, its fourth annual ESG Research conference in London, its first Sustainable Finance Conference in Singapore, its Sustainable Policy Forum in Brussels and its ESG Emerging Market Corporate Day.
Find out more here.
1 Climate Policy Initiative – Global Landscape of Climate Finance: A Decade of Data