Conclusion and outlook
The present Climate Strategy describes the current status of our climate ambitions and the pathway to achieving them. It provides an overview of the methodology employed to calculate financed emissions and the results of these calculations, as well as the formulation of climate targets for the bank’s agriculture and renewable energy portfolio and a discussion of the actions that will be taken to achieve these climate targets.
In addition to the GHG reduction actions described above, we are working to establish suitable control instruments. The key action needed to ensure effective control is to enhance the quality of climate-related data. To this end, we are seeking to replace or supplement the secondary data recorded in PCAF to assess the portfolio of promotional lending activities with primary data from our ultimate borrowers whenever possible.
An obstacle to achieving this goal is the lending bank principle, according to which the respective lending banks maintain contacts with the ultimate borrowers. To develop a broad data base, we are currently studying the option of having our major business partners supply operational data (size and economic sector).
For this purpose, we want to develop an easily accessible system under which our customers can provide us with certain emissions-relevant information in the future. Emissions-relevant data may include loans to finance the acquisition of low-emissions fertiliser equipment, for example. Such equipment usually replaces older, less efficient equipment, thereby saving GHG emissions from the application of farmyard manure. The quantity of these savings can be approximated by comparing the two kinds of equipment (old versus new) in conjunction with type and quantity of commercial fertiliser applied.
The goal is to generate the largest possible dataset on the basis of incentives and voluntary disclosures. This will enable us to obtain more precise, up-to-date, and differentiated information on the emissions of our customers so that we can develop even more effective promotional programmes in the area of transformation financing.
It will also enable our customers to better understand their greenhouse gas emissions and the sources of those emissions, identify saving potentials, and be prepared to answer the data requests of other contractual partners. As the first concrete measure, a promotional programme to support the preparation of CO2 inventories will be introduced in 2026. This programme will consist of two components: a grant for consulting services to help our customers prepare a climate assessment, and loans granted at a subsidised interest rate to agricultural enterprises that can delineate their CO2 footprints.