Financing the transition
The financial sector has an important role to play in helping to address climate change. The final decision text from COP27 stated that $4trn per year needs to be invested in renewables to be able to reach net zero emissions by 2050 and furthermore, a global transformation to a low-carbon economy is expected to require investments of between $4-6trn per year.
Barclays is facilitating green and sustainable finance, alongside investing, to help the economies we serve to support the transition to a low-carbon model. We are facilitating funding and investing into green technologies and low-carbon infrastructure projects. We are also using our advisory capabilities, product sets and financial expertise to help our customers and clients realise their own transitions to a low-carbon economy.
$1trn Sustainable and Transition Financing
We surpassed our 2018 target to deliver £150bn of social and environmental financing by 2025 and we are on track to meet our target to deliver £100bn of green finance well ahead of our 2030 target date.
As a result, and after a strategic review of the bank’s capabilities, market demand and growth opportunities, Barclays has a new target to facilitate $1trn of Sustainable and Transition Financing between 2023 and the end of 2030.
This encompasses the green, social, transition and broader sustainability-linked financing requirements of clients including corporates, governments 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.
£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 £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.
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 400 ESG-focused research reports published in 2022 and over 800 bottom-up, company-specific ESG profiles published to date.
Find out more here.