The Banque de France (BdF) announced that it will exclude all companies with a coal-related activity, however small, from its own €22 billion investment and pension portfolio by 2025. It will also reduce its oil and gas holdings, adopting the Paris Aligned Benchmark (PAB) thresholds to exclude companies with a turnover of 10% for oil or 50% for gas. The bank will also vote against the development of new fossil fuel projects by companies in which it is a shareholder. The measures do not affect criteria for monetary policy purchases.
Introducing the announcement, Governor François Villeroy de Galhau highlighted the BdF’s pioneering role as the first Eurosystem central bank to make responsible investment commitments. Its responsible investment policy framework, introduced in 2018, already excludes coal mining companies or companies with over 20% of their turnover associated with coal. This threshold will fall to 2% later this year.
The move was welcomed by campaigners, with some reservations about the absence of strict criteria preventing the bank from supporting new carbon intensive projects.
“With this announcement, the Banque de France is catching up with and overtaking private financial players and recognising the urgency of cutting off financial support for fossil fuels. Now, it must apply this dynamic to its core business by advocating for the immediate decarbonisation of European monetary policy,” said Reclaim Finance campaigner Paul Schreiber.
This page was last updated April 23, 2021
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