Banks’ sustainability-related disclosures continue to expand with many disclosure frameworks applied. Understanding and comparing performance can therefore be a challenge.

Our 2024 benchmarking analysis of sustainability-related disclosures covers 33 major banks. We dive into sustainability topics with strategic relevance to, and clear alignment with, the banking sector. Our analysis focuses on:

  • financed and facilitated emissions;
  • net-zero and emissions reduction targets;
  • sustainable financing;
  • emissions data quality;
  • customer-related programmes;
  • measuring social impacts; and
  • sustainability governance and business conduct.
It is becoming increasingly important to deliver a connected and focused narrative. Banks can evolve their reporting further by taking a more focused approach when determining which topics to discuss and reporting on material issues that have the most consequential impact.

Richard Smith

Partner

KPMG in the Netherlands & Global Banking Audit Quality Leader


Connectivity

The connectivity between sustainability and financial reporting continues to evolve. Climate-related risks are most often discussed in the context of credit risk management and ECL.

However, the quantified impact of climate-related risk on ECL remains relatively limited.

Financed emissions


Banks typically disclose the percentage of total loans covered by financed emissions reporting.​
 
Most banks have set targets for financed emissions in select lending sectors.

Net-zero and emissions reduction targets 


The most disclosed dependencies are data availability and quality, government policies, customer engagement and technology development. 

Complaint-handling


The lack of a common approach and the use of different metrics for customer complaints make it difficult to compare performance between banks.

Business conduct

Banks disclose policies on various aspects of business conduct and governance on sustainability-related matters. The most common policies include codes of conduct and ethics, and whistleblower and remuneration policies. 

Our analysis covers 33 banks

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Banks' sustainability-related disclsoures

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