MADRID (Reuters) – BBVA has increased its target for lending to businesses the Spanish bank considers sustainable to 700 billion euros ($732.7 billion) over the next five years, it said on Monday.
The lender, which last year established a new global finance unit focused on clean technologies and innovation, had set a previous target of 300 billion euros for the period 2018-2025.
“Business opportunity in the second part of the decade will be driven by solid investment in infrastructure and by the maturity of certain new clean technologies, which will make them profitable,” Javier Rodriguez Soler, BBVA’s global head of sustainability and corporate and investment banking, said.
Growing public pressure for action to limit climate change has spurred countries and companies to promise emissions reductions. Banks have pledged to lend more to cleaner energy and to curb financing of polluting industries.
But environmental campaigners fear banks could be affected by the shift in the political climate, particularly under new U.S. President Donald Trump, and could row back on their sustainability pledges.
HSBC last week delayed its target for reaching net-zero emissions across its business by 20 years to 2050, because of the slow pace of change in the economy.
BBVA also has a goal of reaching net-zero emissions by mid-century. The bank still finances coal but says it will stop by 2030 in developed countries and by 2040 in the rest of the world.
($1 = 0.9554 euros)
(Reporting by Jesús Aguado; editing by Tommy Wilkes and Jane Merriman)
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