Swiss banking giant UBS has adopted new lending guidelines that ban project-level finance for new coal-fired generating stations around the world.
The bank “will only finance existing coal-fired operators—defined as being more than 30% reliant on coal—that have a transition strategy that supports the Paris climate agreement, or transactions that are related to renewable energy,” S&P Global Market Intelligence reports, in a dispatch picked up the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. “The bank also intends to source 100% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020.”
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UBS reported the value of its “carbon-related assets” fell from US$6.6 to $2.7 billion between 2017 and 2018, S&P states. “Climate-related sustainable investments totaled $87.5 billion, up from $74 billion in 2017.” The institution also pegged its “total sustainable investment assets “and “core sustainable investment assets” at $1.11 trillion and $313 billion at the end of last year, respectively, accounting for 35.8 and 10.1% of its total investments. The IEEFA report doesn’t say how UBS defines those asset categories.
