Despite full-bodied climate promises, Deutsche Bank and many other large financial groups continue to provide oil, gas and coal companies with billions.

This is the result of a study that Reclaim Finance, Urgewald and several other environmental initiatives presented this Tuesday and which the FAZ has already been able to see.

Tim Kanning

Editor in Business.

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According to this, Deutsche Bank alone has provided 9.2 billion dollars in the past two years to companies that climate protectionists describe as "fossil expansionists" - i.e. corporations such as the Canadian pipeline builder Enbridge or the French energy group Totalenergies, which put money in invest in the further expansion of fossil fuels.

In the opinion of the two organizations, the fund company of the largest German bank, DWS, does not live up to its sustainability promises either, since as of September it had invested 10.4 billion dollars in shares and bonds of fossil expansionists.

"Deutsche Bank plays an important role internationally in financing fossil fuel expansionists, both in coal and, on a much larger scale, in oil and gas," comments Regine Richter von Urgewald.

The biggest financiers are Americans and Japanese

Environmental organizations have focused on members of climate initiatives such as the Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) and the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative (NZAM), who are actually committed to progressively reducing the greenhouse gas emissions associated with their finance to zero .

However, the 56 largest members of the banking alliance alone have channeled a total of 270 billion dollars to 102 leading fossil expansionists since they joined.

This happened as part of 134 syndicated loans and 215 underwriting mandates involved in the bond issuance.

The environmental organizations identify the major American banks Citigroup (around 31 billion dollars) and Bank of America as the three largest financiers in these sectors, as well as the Japanese institute Mitsubishi Financial, both of which would have raised around 23 billion dollars each.

The authors also list Commerzbank as another German member of the banking alliance, which has given 219 million dollars to oil and gas companies since joining the banking alliance.

What are Deutsche Bank's goals?

In the fall, Deutsche Bank set itself specific targets as to how much it wants to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions it finances in various sectors.

From the Urgewald activist Richter’s point of view, however, they do not go far enough: “Because they start with general decarbonization goals in the sector and not where it would be most important from a climate point of view: with the categorical exclusion of companies that still want to expand and thus the Parisians make climate targets unattainable.”

Of course, the bank sees things differently: "We do not consider the immediate exclusion of individual companies or sectors to be expedient," said their chief climate officer Jörg Eigendorf recently to the FAZ to accompany."

engagement significantly reduced

When asked about Urgewald's latest figures, a spokesman for the bank said on Monday: "We have strict guidelines for doing business in carbon-intensive sectors and have significantly reduced our exposure there since 2016.

We will also completely withdraw from financing the mining of steam coal by the end of 2025.” The business policy is in line with the voluntary commitment.

In fact, a previous study that Urgewald also participated in found that Deutsche Bank was pouring twice as much money into these industries in 2017 as it did in 2021.

The climate protectors do not give the asset managers any better testimonials.

They are said to have invested at least $847 billion in the stocks and bonds of 201 fossil expansionists.

Spicy: The world's largest asset manager Blackrock, which likes to call on the world's corporations to be more sustainable in public, is also number one in this ranking and is therefore involved in these corporations with 191 billion dollars.

DWS working on “Coal Policy”

DWS said on Monday that they were working on “introducing a coal policy soon”.

"

At the same time, we are reviewing our approach to the oil and gas sector," a spokeswoman said when asked by FAZ support."

In addition to DWS, the other large German fund companies are also maintaining their investments in oil, gas and coal.

Allianz Global Investors is said to have invested $4.3 billion, Union Investment $3.3 billion and Deka $2 billion.