Nordea sets sector targets to reduce emissions

Nordea has set four new sector targets covering Shipping, Residential Real Estate, Oil and Gas and Mining. These targets will help Nordea steer towards its objective to reduce carbon emissions by 40-50% across its lending and investment portfolios by 2030 – an overarching objective that Nordea was the first Nordic bank to publish in 2021.

Sustainability is a key lever in executing on Nordea’s strategy. The sector targets will guide Nordea’s work to support its customers’ journeys to reduce emissions and accelerate the transition of the economy.

“As a bank we have an important role in supporting our customers and the broader society in the transition to a more sustainable economy. With these sector targets we continue to drive concrete action towards our 2030 objective and ultimately becoming a net-zero emissions bank by 2050,” says Anja Lidgren Hannerz, Head of Group Sustainability.

Nordea’s new sector targets:

• Shipping (vessels): Reduce physical emission intensity in our shipping portfolio by 30% from 2019 to 2030.
• Residential Real Estate: Reduce physical emission intensity in our residential real estate portfolio by 40-50% from 2019 to 2030.
• Oil and Gas: Reduce absolute scope 1, 2 and 3 financed emissions from Exploration and Production by 55% from 2019 to 2030.
• Thermal peat mining: Nordea will phase out thermal peat mining by 2025.

Emission intensity targets generally refer to higher efficiency in the sector. For example, within residential real estate the emission intensity target is a commitment to continue to support Nordea’s customers’ transition towards more energy-efficient homes. This will be done by financing renovations and installing renewable or more energy-efficient energy sources. The target will also to a large extent be supported by the societal transition towards more sustainable construction of new homes and a greener energy mix.

Since the end of 2019, Nordea has decreased its financing to the whole oil, gas and offshore sector by more than 70%. The target of exiting the offshore sector by 2025 has previously been communicated to the market.

Having joined the Net Zero Banking Alliance in October 2021, Nordea committed to setting sector targets. The first round of these targets has now been published. Nordea will continue to set sector targets in carbon-intensive sectors and this work is scheduled based on climate vulnerability and data availability.

The progress and more details of the sector targets will be published in Nordea’s annual report.

Full list of Nordea’s sector targets:

 
1 Combined, NDC (Nationally Determined Contributions) plus renovation decarbonisation and building stock turnover decarbonisation  (conservative estimates).

2 A normative IEA scenario that shows a pathway for the global energy sector to achieve net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050 and is consistent with limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5 °C without a temperature overshoot (with a 50% probability), in line with reductions assessed by the IPCC in its Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C.

3 Including methane emissions in CO2 equivalents for scopes 1 and 2.

For further information

Group Communication, +358 10 416 8023 or press@nordea.com
 

We are a universal bank with a 200-year history of supporting and growing the Nordic economies – enabling dreams and aspirations for a greater good. Every day, we work to support our customers’ financial development, delivering best-in-class omnichannel customer experiences and driving sustainable change. The Nordea share is listed on the Nasdaq Helsinki, Nasdaq Copenhagen and Nasdaq Stockholm exchanges. Read more about us at nordea.com.