TREND 3: Financed emissions: Get real and take action

This is the year in which commercial banks will start to achieve traction on their ESG goals. Their capital resources and corporate relationships position them perfectly to work with customers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate climate-related risks. However, to date, they have struggled to execute their strategies. Leading banks will tackle the challenges head-on, starting with a review of their lending strategies to identify climate risk exposures. They will automate the gathering of ESG data and leverage carbon-intelligent information systems in making lending decisions. They will use modern, cloud-based origination systems and tools to empower relationship managers with useful insights and upskill these RMs to give climate-informed financial advice to customers. Making progress toward their net zero targets will be high on every bank’s agenda for the year.