Paris-based financial services group Societe Generale announced today that it has achieved a series of its sustainable finance goals ahead of schedule – including its goal to facilitate €300 billion of financing for environmental and social activities between 2020 and 2025 – and unveiled a new sustainable finance target of €500 billion from 2024 to 2030.

The company also said that it achieved a reduction its upstream oil and gas exposure by more than 50% on a 2019 basis in Q2 2024, ahead of its goal to do so by 2025, and that it has significantly withdrawn from the thermal coal sector, with exposure at less than 0.1% of its financing portfolio.

Slawomir Krupa, Chief Executive Officer of Societe Generale, said:

“Societe Generale continues to strengthen its contribution to sustainable development in the service of its clients, supported by our culture of innovation, our ESG leadership, and our conviction of the crucial role that a responsible bank can play in the challenges of the environmental transition.”

Societe Generale set its €300 billion sustainable finance goal in 2022, after surpassing its prior target, and expanded the scope of its sustainable finance ambition to include social objectives in addition its energy transition financing focus. The new goal expands this commitment, with approximately 80% of the financing targeted at environmental activities, and 20% for social activities. The target also envisions 4500 billion in financing, including advisory, and €100 billion in sustainable bonds.

Societe Generale is a founding member of the Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), a UN-convened coalition of banks dedicated to advancing global net zero goals through their financing activities. As part of its NZBA commitments, the bank has set 2030 net zero alignment targets on ten emissions-intensive sectors to date, including Oil & Gas, Thermal Coal, Power, Commercial Real Estate, Cement, Steel, Aluminium, Automotive, Shipping, and Aviation, and completed work on the Agriculture and Residential Real Estate sectors.

The bank noted that with the new sustainable finance goal, which aligns with its 2030 financed emissions targets, it aims to focus financial flows towards the decarbonization of the high-emitting sectors for which it has set targets, with a major portion of the financing to be dedicated to transactions in areas such as low-carbon energy, sustainable real estate, and low-carbon mobility.

Societe Generale added that it also aims to strengthen its contribution to sustainable finance by leveraging on its position in renewable energies to roll-out of a cross-sectoral approach on value chains, and by broadening its sustainable finance offering with innovative ESG solutions and advisory capabilities to help clients in their transitions.

Krupa said:

“This year, we have taken new steps in the execution of our strategic roadmap with concrete progress reflected in the progressive reduction of our fossil fuel exposure. We are also continuing to broaden our action by proactively supporting our clients in their own transitions with adapted solutions and an enhanced sustainable finance offering, while supporting the emergence of new players and new technologies. I remain convinced that the transition to a low-carbon and sustainable economy requires collective and coordinated action in which Societe Generale is involved on a daily basis.”