Climate strategy and overarching strategy

This page is part of the E3G Public Bank Climate Tracker Matrix, our tool to help you assess the Paris alignment of public banks, MDBs and DFIs.

Standalone climate strategy and integration of climate in overarching strategy. More info
Unaligned
No standalone climate strategy and no integration of climate into overarching bank strategy.
Some progress
Limited climate strategy or no indicators to monitor progress and/or limited integration of mitigation or resilience in overarching strategy.
Paris aligned
Comprehensive climate strategy, integration of mitigation and resilience in overarching bank strategy. Either one or both strategies refer to principle of “do no harm” and alignment to Paris Agreement.
Transformational
Integration of both deep decarbonisation and resilience in strategy, roadmap for alignment with 1.5°C and strong evidence of implementation.

Methodology

This metric analyses the climate strategy or climate action plans of the institutions and assesses their quality in terms of Paris alignment and integration of mitigation and resilience. 

This metric also looks at whether climate and Paris alignment is integrated into the institutional or overarching strategy of the institution. (We recognise that for some institutions there are multiple overarching strategies.) 

For ‘Paris aligned’ performance an institution will have botha comprehensive climate strategy which covers mitigation and resilience, plus effective integration of mitigation and adaptation in its overarching strategy. To be Paris-aligned both must mention climate change and Paris Agreement alignment explicitly rather than “green growth” or the “green economy”, and refer to principle of “do no harm”.   

In this metric we also look for evidence that the future joint MDB Paris alignment framework has been integrated within the bank’s climate strategy and overarching strategy, and whether and how it is being implemented or piloted. We also look for evidence of a roadmap of Paris alignment, with dates by which the insitution is set to be 100% Paris aligned. 

For ‘Transformational’ performance, as well as having climate change as a core part of the overarching strategy, the climate strategy must incorporate both deep decarbonisation and resilience as well as a roadmap for alignment with a 1.5°C scenario, and strong evidence of implementation. ‘Deep decarbonisation’ refers to a pathway which gets the economy to zero net emissions by 2050, and requires a profound transformation in energy, transport and all other sectors of the economy. We will also look at the extent to which the principle of “do no harm” or “do no significant harm” is incorporated in this analysis.

In our interpretation of the MDB Building Blocks of Paris alignment, this metric is relevant to the alignment of “internal activities”. 

Evolution of this indicator 

As all public banks make progress in their processes of Paris alignment, this metric will continually evolve in order to reflect the need for progress to be made in this process. In our initial assessments of climate and overarching strategies in 2017/18 we did not necessarily expect references or roadmaps to Paris alignment, but 5 years on from the commitment to align with Paris, this is now a reasonable expectation.

Institutional climate strategies are released regularly and where an institutional strategy has only recently been released, further monitoring would be required to identify the level of implementation. In addition, certain institutions did not label a particular policy as a “climate” strategy whilst it may have had a similar function within the organisation. Further iterations of this methodology may seek to explore further whether such policies can have the same function whilst not being framed as related to climate change.   

Last updated: November 2020.

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