• Media type: Electronic Conference Proceeding
  • Title: Financial carbon footprint : calculating banks' scope 3 emissions of assets and loans
  • Contributor: Teubler, Jens [Author]; Kühlert, Markus [Author]
  • Published: Stockholm : European Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, 2020-10-07
  • Language: English
  • Origination:
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  • Description: Financial institutions play a crucial role in achieving the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. They can manage capital flows for financing the required transformation towards a decarbonized industry. Currently established policy programs and regulations at European and national level increasingly address financial institutions to make their climate warming impact measurable and transparent. However, required science-based assessment methods have not been sufficiently developed so far. This paper discusses methodological opportunities and challenges for measuring carbon footprints of financial institutions. Based on a scientific case study undertaken with the German GLS Bank, the authors introduce an innovative method for quantifying greenhouse gas emissions from a bank's asset with a focus on loans. The authors apply an input/output database to calculate greenhouse gas (GHG) intensities and allocate them with bank's loans and investments. Moreover, the paper provides insights of calculating avoided GHG emissions initiated by a bank's investment and loans. In conclusion, a high degree of consistent and standardized assessment methods and guidelines need to be developed and applied to promote comparability and transparency.
  • Access State: Open Access
  • Rights information: In Copyright