Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW) retracts its claim to be completely carbon neutral since 2021. The term has disappeared from the website. The claim to be climate-neutral is “unacceptable”. A grandiose announcement from autumn 2020 came to nothing.
The bank had stated that it would compensate for unavoidable emissions by investing in the Arbaro reforestation fund and thus be “completely climate-neutral”. However, the bank did not observe common compensation criteria. This was the result of research by the weekly newspaper “Die Zeit”.
Confronted with the doubts about their representation, LBBW admitted to the “Zeit”: The claim to be climate-neutral “cannot be upheld”. Even in their most recent reports, they no longer used the term. Now it is complete disappeared from the website. The bank is withdrawing it.
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The Landesbank’s original plan was different: In autumn 2020, LBBW announced that it would invest around USD 3.5 million in the globally active Arbaro Fund reforestation fund. According to the plan, the funds from the fund will go to long-term reforestation projects in Latin America and Africa.
“With climate neutrality, we are now reaching another milestone in our commitment to sustainability,” said Thomas Rosenfeld, CEO of LBBW Asset and Wealth Management and Chairman of the LBBW Sustainability Council at the time. “By investing our own capital in a reforestation fund instead of buying certificates, we go a significant step further than our competitors. In this way, we are underpinning our claim to be one of the most sustainable universal banks in Europe,” the head of the bank announced.
Climate change is extremely important for banks. The reason: It is an existential threat and also an economic risk that must be taken seriously. Floods, storms or forest fires that are accumulating show this very clearly. In addition, the extreme weather events cause damage to infrastructure, destroy crops and consequently lead to higher food prices. All of this has major consequences for the liquidity of bank customers and thus for the success of the individual banks themselves.