Nigel Topping and Mahmoud Mohieldin, High-level Climate Champions for COP26 & COP27
“We welcome GFANZ’s pan-sector Net-Zero Transition Plan (NZTP) guidance and accompanying frameworks as important tools for helping the financial institutions in the UN Climate Champions’ Race to Zero to translate their net zero commitments into actionable plans with real-economy impact. The consultation process is an opportunity for financial institutions to demonstrate leadership in helping to shape the best practices that will drive the ambitious climate action we need to achieve the Paris goals.”
Nili Gilbert, Chair, GFANZ Advisory Panel, and Vice Chairwoman, Carbon Direct
“As we move further into the net zero transition, companies that have made pledges are acting on implementation, and companies which have yet to make pledges are seeking to understand their own starting approach. The clarity offered in the Net Zero Transition Plan for Financial Institutions report will support institutions at all stages of the process, and represent a critical step in the accountability, action and ambition of the finance sector’s push towards net zero.”
Oliver Bäte, Chief Executive Officer, Allianz SE
“The net-zero transition is an opportunity for global finance to lead. Financial institutions need to be able to translate climate science into tools that help align their businesses to the transition. In turn, these institutions can operationalize decarbonization pathways for all the industries they finance.”
Amanda Blanc, Group Chief Executive Officer, Aviva
“Ambition is not enough – a net-zero transition plan lays out the steps for financial institutions to generate a plan and execute against it. We cannot wait for all the answers – the time is now.”
David Blood, Senior Partner, Generation IM
“For financial institutions to transition successfully to net zero, we need a forward-looking approach to measure how portfolios align to the transition. While the financial sector has started to develop these tools, we aim for further enhancements to ensure that they are robust and easy to use.”
Thomas Buberl, Chief Executive Officer, Axa
“Because the financial sector is interconnected and truly global, all institutions must take responsibility for their transition to net-zero. GFANZ supports ambitious, concrete net-zero goals and transparent intermediate targets from all actors in the economy so that our actions can help put the world on the right course to tackle climate change.”
Jane Fraser, Chief Executive Officer, Citi
“Now is the time for the financial sector to deliver on our commitments, and having a common framework for action will help ensure there is an immediate and collective response to climate change. Reaching net zero will be one of our generation’s biggest challenges and will require that we finance the transition responsibly across every high-carbon sector and asset class.”
Noel Quinn, Group Chief Executive, HSBC
“We have a coalition of the willing in the financial sector to reach net zero, but now is the time to put the detail into the plans that will get us there – we need to explain the journey and how we will deliver our commitments. This must be informed by experts both within and outside our industry, so I encourage all interested parties to contribute to this consultation.”
Alison Rose, Chief Executive Officer, NatWest
“If we are to limit global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius and stay on track to meet the ambitious goals set out in the Paris Agreement, we need to make a collective effort as a sector to accelerate the transition of the global economy to net zero. This framework provides practical and tangible guidance to help financial institutions and the real economy play their part in tackling this critical global challenge.”
David Schwimmer, Chief Executive Officer, LSEG
“The financial sector has an essential role in enabling real-economy emissions reductions, and the only way to do that is through companies producing credible transition plans setting out how they will achieve their net zero targets. GFANZ is working on developing the financial sector’s expectations of real-economy companies to make that a reality.”
About GFANZ
The Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) is a practitioner-led, global coalition of financial sector institutions and their sector-specific alliances working together to accelerate the world’s transition to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and achieve the objective of the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees C. GFANZ has united over 500 member firms from across the financial sector, including banks, insurers, asset owners, asset managers, financial service providers and investment consultants, spanning 45 countries and representing around 40% of global private financial assets.
Further details can be found on https://www.gfanzero.com.
Also available to read in Portuguese and Spanish.
