BNP PARIBAS
Rated for year 2021: Neutral
Score: 0
Groupe de référence: banque
Positive news:
February 2021: BNP Paribas, has pledged to stop financing firms producing or buying either beef or soya beans cultivated on land in the Amazon cleared or converted after 2008.
Analyse:
*** 2020 ***
The bank can invest and in and finance projects harmful to animals. Animal-rights Althought the bank mentions that it is part of the “Benchmark for Farm Animal Welfare”, there is no indication in the public documents published by the bank (ex: Article 173 report, PRI Transparency code, ESG integration guidelines) that the bank would prevent itself from investing or financing projects or companies directly or indirectly involved in animal exploitation such as: meat industries, skin and fur sectors, animal experimentation, entertainment using animals. For these reasons, BNP Paribas score and rating cannot be greater than 0 “neutral”.
*** 2017 ***
Investment in renewable energies have increased by 29% from € 7.2 to 9.3 billion from 2015 to 2016 (p 458 of 2016 registration document); BNP Paribas has participated in the issue of the 1st French sovereign green bond. We note that the bank’s exclusion list excludes financing projects related to the trading of animals mentioned on the sur la liste CITES (p 459 du document de référence 2016).
The bank has signed the Equator Principles where ESG projects are classified by categories A/B/C; A represents the most polluting projects, and C the least. Concerning the bank’s performance related to the Equator Principles, we observe more investment in polluting projects from 2015 to 2016: from 0 category A / 12 category B /1 category C in 2015 to 3 category A/ 14 category B / 0 category C in 2016, so an increase of +3 category A highly polluting projects. But in comparisons with other French banks of the same peer group, since 3 category A projects financed by BNP are still less than 7 projects of category A financed by Societe Generale, 7 category A by Credit Agricole, and 5 category A by Natixis, the BNP Paribas’s score is higher than its competitors.
Catégorie A - Projets présentant des risques environnementaux et sociaux négatifs potentiels importants et / ou divers, irréversibles ou sans précédent;
Catégorie B - Projets ayant des risques environnementaux et sociaux négatifs et limités potentiels qui sont peu nombreux, généralement spécifiques au site, largement réversibles et facilement traités par des mesures d'atténuation; et
Catégorie C - Projets avec des risques et / ou impacts environnementaux et sociaux négatifs minimes ou nuls
BENEFICIAL ASPECTS: wildlife investment exclusion; stops financing firms producing or buying beef from deforested land in the Amazon
HARMFUL ASPECTS: animal welfare and rights are not investment or financing criteria
Sources:
Reuters – France’s BNP to stop financing firms farming deforested land in the Amazon
BNP Paribas reports on sustainable investments
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