COP27 is over. Time to scale-up cooperation!

“Our main job as a bank is to be a catalyst and provide our clients with the financing required to accelerate to net-zero”, said Laurence Pessez , Global Head of CSR, in Sharm El Sheikh, where leaders from all sectors gathered to assess the progress in the implementation of climate commitments. Now that the COP27 has come and gone, making sizeable progress on the subject of loss and damages for states most vulnerable to climate change, but leaving many frustrated with the rate of the green transition, one thing is clear: keep implementing drastic actions to reach the Paris Agreement goals.

• 68% of SMEs report that lack of resources prevents them from taking climate action. With that in mind, antoine sire , Head of Company Engagement, pointed out a crucial factor for helping businesses – especially SMEs – on their net-zero journey: climate education. BNP Paribas is approaching the issue in multiple ways: in Poland, we developed Agronomist, a support provider that offers the food and agriculture value chain educational content and innovative tools to assess its GHG emissions; in France, our retail banking business has developed an energy transition offer geared specifically towards SMEs.

• Even more than education, access to funding for climate change adaptation is a major hurdle for SMEs, especially in rural areas. That is why inclusive microfinance is key to leading transformative climate adaptation at scale, Laurence Pessez argued. To this end, we recently partnered with International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) to certify inclusive finance providers for climate adaptation impacts. “The microfinance sector needs to convince inclusive finance investors about their impact, but they don’t have the capacity to develop their own framework, and so must rely on an independent third party to provide the transparency expected by funders” detailed by Laurence Pessez. A certification standard efficiently addresses this issue and proves, yet again, that what the green transition needs most is collaboration between all stakeholders. Indeed, for the world to collectively manage to limit and reduce carbon emissions in the next few years, more impactful actions will be needed that can only be conducted through coalitions, collective efforts, and public-private partnerships.
• Beyond supporting companies, strong environmental planning is needed to foster the transition. “There is still a deficit in terms of public policies and regulatory frameworks”, said Antoine Sire. “Environmental planning should encompass home energy efficiency, SMEs, green mobility, supply chains, health... More regulations and clear policies are needed to provide us with a concrete vision of how to make certain activities or consumptions evolve”.?

• One last thing: while climate change took center stage at COP27, let’s not forget another burning issue, often regarded —wrongfully— as less urgent: the protection of biodiversity. Maintaining healthy, diverse ecosystems is crucial to climate; in this regard, the upcoming COP15 on biodiversity, to be held in Montreal on December 7-19th 2022, is expected to be a landmark moment, marking the adoption of a new framework for preserving biodiversity.

New frontiers

Decarbonizing the industry: tech to the rescue!

• In France, industry accounts for 20% of greenhouse gas emissions. What if one single initiative could save up to 100,000 tons of CO2? Enter Decarb Fast Track , a program launched by French cleantech company METRON in partnership with BNP Paribas, Amazon Web Services (AWS) , and Dalkia . The idea: to help 100 industrial companies cut their CO2 emissions using an energy management and optimization solution.?

Explorers

• To reach carbon neutrality by 2050: that is the pledge taken by BNP Paribas Asset Management as a signatory of the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative. A bold objective underpinned by ten comprehensive commitments , from increasing investments in climate and environmental solutions to engaging our clients on their transitions towards net-zero.?
• Indeed, addressing sustainability issues remains a complex matter for many companies. At COP27, Bénédicte Thibord , Head of Corporate Cash Equity (Europe), and Laurie Fitzjohn-Sykes , Co-Head of ESG Research at BNP Paribas Exane , sat down to discuss the results of Exane’s recent survey of 375 managers across Europe. The result: an overview of the ten ESG challenges corporates are still wrestling with .??
• One major hurdle for companies on their sustainability journey: achieving better climate emissions accounting. Such is exactly the goal of the Linux Foundation’s open-source collaboration, OS-Climate , which BNP Paribas is proud to support. Its OpenClimate project will help harmonize data and increase digital interoperability among currently fragmented national, subnational, city, sectoral, and corporate data systems.

Milestones

Channeling green funding towards those who need it the most?

• In many countries around the world, smallholder farmers are still excluded from the traditional banking system. That is why BNP Paribas and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) have launched the JuST Institute, a trailblazing social business that will bring more funding to rural communities and smallholder farmers to help them adapt to climate change. As a founding member of the Institute, BNP Paribas intends to lead the change towards a just transition by increasing financial flows towards biodiversity, climate, and social & financial inclusivity.

• A similar philosophy underpins the work of a UN flagship fund dedicated to channel financings towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), for which BNP Paribas has been mandated to raise capital. As the integration of SDGs in public and private investment decisions remains too slow, the Fund works to catalyze financing that improves the well-being of communities and vulnerable groups by uniting global expertise, strategic partnerships, and innovative networks. To date, it has funded 200 joint programs, stimulated 1,000+ partnerships, and tested over 300 innovative solutions to accelerate the 2030 Agenda.?

From the observation post

• By now, RNA is well-known as the technology used in most Covid vaccines. But did you know it could help protect agriculture from pathogens? For our “Uncapped Impact” series, we sat down with Andrey Zarur , CEO and co-founder of GreenLight Biosciences , to learn how his company is using RNA to solve a major environmental challenge to food security .??