"Triodos Bank leaves NZBA", 15 April 2025

"Triodos Bank has decided to leave the Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) due to the recent vote by a majority of member banks for lowering the climate ambition of the alliance and setting less strict requirements.

Despite the improvements in the updated guidelines published on 13 March 2024, which partially addressed our criticisms, the new guidelines fall short of the needed urgency to align loans and investments portfolios with the 1.5 degrees Celsius global warming scenario.  

Triodos Bank believes that by only 'encouraging' members to set and publicly disclose targets to support meeting the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement, the new guidance provides too much leeway for banks. Triodos Banks also disapproves letting go of the requirement to have a 1.5 degrees Celsius target. That is why Triodos Bank has voted against the proposed changes. 

The reality is that the global economy is not on track to stay within safe levels of warming and more needs to be done, rather than less. Science is clear that ending new exploration and expansion and phasing-out fossil fuel production in the near future is critical to keep the world in line with global climate goals and to avoid catastrophic climate disruption. Furthermore, banks have an ethical and moral responsibility to drive the transition towards sustainable practices, ensuring that their actions contribute positively to the global effort to combat climate change. 

Global cooperation is essential to ensure banks align their portfolios with the 1.5℃ scenario. However, the shift from strict requirements to more lenient guidance significantly undermines the effectiveness of the NZBA to achieve this. In the current situation, Triodos Bank does not believe it can still effectively influence the NZBA and its members to move the dial. 

Therefore, we have made the difficult decision to leave the NZBA, as we think that remaining a member under these less stringent guidelines and lowered ambition, and also seeing that everything we have achieved over the years by staying being watered down, would not align with our own climate ambition and commitment to combating climate change.  

We appreciate the effort the UN Secretariat, the NZBA and its member banks have made to create a global alliance to combat climate change. Their efforts have been instrumental in bringing together banks from around the world to address this critical issue. We hope that the NZBA continues to push for stronger and more effective measures to ensure a sustainable future for all. We will continue to influence the financial sector by advocating for stricter climate policies and aligning loans and investments with the 1.5 degrees Celsius global warming scenario."