display
When bankers talk about the future of their business these days, they sound amazingly environmentally.
They affirm how important the change to more sustainability is and how much their companies support it.
“Green finance” and “sustainable banking” have long been niche topics.
Now they have arrived in the mainstream of the money industry - and promise it not only a clear conscience, but also good business.
This is also the case at Commerzbank. The Frankfurt Institute is proud that it is listed as one of seven German companies in the “Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World Index” (G100) by the market research company Corporate Knights. With financing of around five billion euros, it is one of the largest financiers for renewable energies in Europe.
Sustainability no longer only plays an important role in financing for companies in the organic sector.
With more and more negotiations about loans or bonds, it is a central point that can have a positive or negative influence on the conditions.
"We support our customers in making their business models more sustainable," says Arno Walter, Head of Wealth Management and Corporate Customers at Commerzbank.
“We are convinced that together with our customers we can achieve the most for climate protection.
We can clearly feel how important it has become for our customers to get involved here. "
Without rethinking, there is a risk of financing gaps
display
Many companies not only can - they have to. If they do not adapt their business model, they face losses in sales and higher costs as well as difficulties with financing. The management consultancy Roland Berger has determined in a study how high the burdens can be if they do not act: Should the emission price for coal rise from the current 25 to 100 euros, the transport sector could lose 50 percent of previous profits. Chemical and energy companies would lose around a third of their profits.
“Transformation processes for companies are certainly associated with challenges. But that is precisely why we should start as soon as possible and not lose any more time, "says Kristina Jeromin, Bundestag candidate for the Greens in Hesse and Managing Director of the Green and Sustainable Finance Cluster Germany, an amalgamation of the initiatives of Deutsche Börse and the Hessian Ministry of Economic Affairs.
For many managers, it has been part of marketing for a long time to present their company as particularly environmentally friendly; there is hardly a presentation or speech that lacks sustainability as an important goal of their work.
There is not always a lot behind it.
“Pasting green paint over your own business with PR does not help”, says Jeromin and emphasizes: “Development is not a moral question.
It's about competitiveness. "
display
Banks and investors play a key role in this.
Loans and other forms of financing are an effective lever - after all, almost every company depends on outside money.
The fact that environmental issues are already playing an important role can be seen in the financing costs for the energy sector.
So far, there are no reliable standards
According to data from the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, new coal-fired power plants, for example, have become so popular with investors that they demand four times the return on solar or wind power plants. The researchers also compared funding costs from 2010 to 2014 with those from 2015 to 2020. According to this, solar energy systems are 20 percent cheaper today, with offshore wind farms the costs are even 33 percent lower than at the beginning of the last decade.
It's not because the banks are suddenly on a moral mission. According to the expert Jeromin, these differences are the result of the usual examination of risks before any financing of a company: Clear and consistent political guidelines, higher issue prices and changed expectations of consumers could significantly reduce the chances of success of companies that do not meet the new standards. so the Green politician. When it comes to financing, they are then punished accordingly.
Experts see the biggest problem in the lack of reliable standards. So far, there is often insufficient data with which banks and investors can reliably assess the sustainability of a company. “This is often a real burden for companies. Our customers have a lot of justified questions about it, ”says Commerzbank manager Walter. "We have great hopes for the taxonomy of the European Union." It sets out clear guidelines that an investment must meet in order to be considered sustainable. “We urgently need taxonomy,” says Walter. It creates legal and planning security and offers customers the "highest possible transparency".