Measuring emissions

Climate change is one of the single biggest challenges faced by society today. Standard Chartered serves clients in many of the markets that are both most exposed to the impact of climate change and in the greatest need of reliable energy sources. As a provider of financial services in these markets, we are uniquely positioned to drive climate change awareness and adaptation, and to direct capital to the areas where it is needed the most.

Recent developments in technology mean that alternative energy sources are available to meet the need for energy without the impact of fossil fuels on the environment. We believe that getting this right, particularly in the markets where we are active, will be crucial to achieving the Paris Agreement which seeks to limit average global warming to ‘well below’ 2 degrees.

Our decision in September 2018 to stop financing coal power was the first in a set of actions we have taken to understand the CO₂ emissions our financing supports, and how we can reduce our impact, in line with the Paris Agreement. At the time, we made a public commitment to develop a methodology to measure, manage and ultimately reduce the emissions related to both our own operations and the activities we finance. This was subsequently reinforced by our participation in the Katowice Commitment in December 2018.

We are committed to being transparent and working with all relevant stakeholders to build our understanding of climate change related risks and opportunities. The purpose of this white paper is to set out our actions and findings to date, and to invite feedback.

To help support action on this important task, we call on:

• Our clients, to work with us on solving the data challenges, and practical elements of implementing a strategy to support a low-carbon transition
• Solution providers, including academics and NGOs, to provide feedback on the methodology observations in this white paper, and solutions to the challenges discussed
• Regulators and Supervisors, to collaborate with us in developing the understanding around these risks, and how regulators and banks could work together to develop a robust response
• Peer banks and financial institutions, to join us in this work, share learnings and work collaboratively to solve the challenges and develop some industry-wide solutions, shaping the way forward

To discuss anything in the white paper, please email us at climate.risk@sc.com

To share our experience and gather feedback, we are also planning to participate in the following roundtables:

• ASFI Climate event (Singapore) on 3 June 2019
• UNEP-FI Regional Roundtable (Shanghai) on 5-6 June 2019

Further roundtables will follow over the coming months, the details of which will be published on this page.