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Governance

Benchmarking banks’ reporting in 2021

This page provides highlights of our benchmarking of the climate-related disclosures included in the 2021 annual reports and other standalone reports of 35 major, global banks. We have also benchmarked how banks' disclosures align with the recommended disclosures of the Task Force on Climate-related Disclosures (TCFD).

The common areas where banks disclose that their board provides oversight over climate-related matters are noted below.

  • Climate strategy: includes setting, approving and monitoring the bank’s climate strategy, establishing metrics and targets and monitoring progress against these.
  • Climate-related risks: includes monitoring and overseeing climate-related risks in line with the bank’s business strategy and risk appetite, often with a focus on the bank's reputational risk.

What is disclosed in the banks’ annual reports?

86 per cent of the banks include disclosures around their governance of climate-related risks and opportunities within their 2021 annual reports. However, the nature and extent of disclosures on governance vary between the banks – 32 per cent of banks provide more detailed disclosures to the users of the annual reports compared to the others.

Generally, the banks acknowledge the roles that their boards and senior management play when it comes to climate-related matters. However, the banks with the more detailed disclosures provide information on the following:

  • details of the specific climate-related matters on which the board provides oversight;
  • details of the responsibility delegated by the board to specific committees such as the risk committee;
  • details of the responsibilities held by senior management including the CEO and CRO; and
  • whether and to what extent senior management’s remuneration is impacted by climate-related targets and metrics.

How does banks’ reporting align to the TCFD recommended disclosures?

It is clear from the disclosures of most banks that they have already enhanced their governance structures for climate-related matters – both at board and management levels.

The focus will now turn to how effective these structures will be as banks address climate-related matters on an ongoing basis. In particular, due to limited quantitative disclosures currently provided by banks in areas such as scenario analysis and financed emissions, we are yet to see the full impacts of these enhancements through their disclosures on strategy as well as metrics and targets.

Find out more - Read our analysis

Read our benchmarking analysis on how banks reported on climate-related matters in the 2021 reporting season. The reports include the scope and approach of our analysis. See phase 1 on how we have assessed the disclosures as ‘more detailed’, ‘less detailed’ or ‘no disclosures’ provided and phase 2 for the maturity scale we used to assess banks’ climate-related disclosures.

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Benchmarking banks’ annual reports

Phase 1

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Benchmarking banks’ TCFD disclosures

Phase 2