The materiality of climate change was brought vividly to our attention in the summer of 2021 with the occurrence of extreme weather events around the world just when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) brought out a compelling report on the undeniable need for urgent, global and coordinated action to mitigate the henceforth inevitable warming of our planet.
The influence of human activities on climate change is no longer open to debate, the challenges facing us are immense and our governments, regulatory and supervisory authorities, economic players, and financial community must all provide ambitious solutions equal to the challenges we face.
Indeed, climate change poses significant economic risks that may ultimately jeopardize the financial stability of the global economy. In its capacity as a leading player in the banking sector committed to limiting climate change, Groupe BPCE intends to take active ownership of these risks and to factor them into its corporate strategy.
It is in this context that we are publishing our first Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) report drawing on working group recommendations by the G20’s Financial Stability Board.
This voluntary reporting framework seeks to demonstrate how we integrate the effects of climate change in our Group’s strategic decisions. The aim of this effort is to give ourselves the means to gauge and quantify climate-related risks and opportunities presented by global warming, and to make them an integral part of our financing, investment, and insurance decision-making processes.
The report is divided into four chapters in line with the TCFD recommendations:
This chapter reviews the principal characteristics of the Group’s governance system flowing from its universal, cooperative and decentralized banking model. It describes how Groupe BPCE validates its climate-related strategic orientations and oversees their implementation. The chapter also describes the organizational structure set up - via its governance system and set of dedicated committees and departments - to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements.
This section presents Groupe BPCE’s commitment to making climate change a priority for all its business lines and companies. It also describes the mechanism for identifying and managing climate related risk factors liable to have an impact on its activities.
This chapter presents the governance system set up to manage climate risks, as well as the management function created to handle these issues in all Groupe BPCE companies. It describes the processes and tools used to analyze climate risks and how specific contingencies are accounted for in the Group’s overall risk management system.
This chapter presents the Green Evaluation Models approach to the climate-risk assessment of Groupe BPCE’s lending portfolios along with the methodologies adopted for its asset management and insurance businesses, allowing it to measure the climate impact of its investment portfolios.
