An estimation of the carbon footprint in spanish credit institutions’ business lending portfolio

Luis Ángel Maza
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Luis Ángel Maza: Banco de España

No 2220, Occasional Papers from Banco de España

Abstract: This paper proposes an indicator to estimate the carbon footprint of the business lending of Spanish credit institutions. The growing interest in our societies in environmental issues means that the action taken by financial institutions to support the fight against climate change and the green transition needs to be analysed. In this respect, it is essential to have quality environmental information available and to establish robust methodologies to assess the climate exposure of the financial sector. This paper seeks to contribute to this debate, offering an experimental statistic to measure the degree of exposure of the banking sector in Spain to the risks involved in the transition to a more sustainable economic model. The results obtained show that the carbon footprint of the loans of Spanish credit institutions seems to have been significantly reduced recently. This decline is compatible with the overall reduction in the intensity of pollutant emissions that has taken place in the Spanish economy in recent years, but also with a slight shift in the composition of the loan portfolio towards less polluting activities.

Keywords: climate change; carbon footprint; financial risks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G10 G20 Q50 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2022-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env and nep-res
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https://www.bde.es/f/webbde/SES/Secciones/Publicac ... 22/Files/do2220e.pdf First version, March 2022 (application/pdf)
https://www.bde.es/f/webbde/SES/Secciones/Publicac ... s/22/Fich/do2220.pdf Spanish version (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bde:opaper:2220e

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