Net Zero Finance: How financial firms can set science-based climate targets

Companies right across the financial sector – from banks, investors, financial institutions and pension funds – are facing growing scrutiny over the carbon impact of not just their core business, but their entire value chains of investments, financial support and loan books.

Increasingly, financial firms are therefore under pressure to firstly measure and disclose their emissions footprint, and then to use that information to set credible targets to decarbonise their financial portfolios via independent certification schemes, such as the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi), which has recently launched a new net zero target standard.

Yet while deeply urgent and necessary to drive down emissions from financial portfolios over the next decade and beyond, doing so is an immensely challenging and complex process, and most of the sector is only at the beginning of the journey, if indeed it has even started.

At BusinessGreen’s recent Net Zero Finance summit, which took place online in March 2022, Nate Aden, senior associate at the SBTi, and Schroders’ head of ESG integration Stephanie Chang both spoke to BG editor in chief James Murry about how companies can and should start on their science-based climate target journey.

Their fascinating and resourceful conversation can be watched back in full again above.