Combating Climate Change
Garanti BBVA continues its contribution to sustainable development by working towards combating the climate crisis, one of its two main focus areas, in order to support sustainability, which is one of its strategic goals. With its industry-leading knowledge and experience, the Bank works with a business model that embraces the opportunities of sustainable development as well as risk management arising from climate change, and takes steps to reduce the direct impacts of its operations. In this context, the Bank cooperates with its peers and the business world at a global level to identify new opportunities, create best practices and product examples, and maintain its leadership in combating climate change in Turkey.
Garanti BBVA, within the scope of combating the negative effects of climate change;
- In 2015, the Bank published its Climate Change Action Plan, focusing on carbon pricing, reducing deforestation, managing water risks through climate change adaptation and establishing green office standards.
- As of 2020, the Bank became a Carbon Neutral Bank in scope 1 and 2 emissions. In 2020, it announced the goal of reducing carbon emissions by 29% by 2025 and 71% by 2035 within the scope of Science-Based Targets, which are compatible with the target of a temperature increase of more than 1.5 °C, and the Bank became the first company to publish such a target in Turkey. It has become a carbon neutral bank 15 years ahead of its reduction target by reducing emissions from its activities by 75% at the end of 2020 and purchasing carbon credits for the remaining emissions.
- The Bank became the first bank from Turkey to commit to exit coal in 2021, and pledged to zero out the risks related to coal activities in its portfolio by 2040 at the latest.
- In 2022, the Bank announced decarbonization targets for 2030 in other carbon-intensive sectors such as energy, automotive, iron and steel and cement.
- Since 2022, the Bank has been monitoring physical risks arising from climate change with a heat map that reveals sectoral vulnerabilities and a model developed based on the physical climate risks in customers' locations.