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Banks' climate commitments and credit to brown industries: new evidence for France

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  • Jean-Stéphane Mésonnier

Abstract

In this paper, I investigate whether and how banks align green words with deeds in terms of credit allocation across more or less carbon-intensive industries in France. I use a rich dataset of bank credit exposures across some fifty industries and two size classes of borrowing firms for the main banking groups operating in France, which I merge with information on industries' greenhouse gas emission intensities and a score for banks' self-reported climate-related commitments over 2010-2017. I find evidence that higher levels of self-reported climate commitments by banks are associated with less lending to large corporates in the five brownest industries. However, lending to SMEs across more or less carbon-intensive industries remained unrelated to banks' commitments to green their business. Since SMEs are not required to report on their carbon emissions, while large firms are, these findings suggest that devising an appropriate carbon reporting framework for small firms is likely to enhance the decarbonization of bank lending.

Suggested Citation

  • Jean-Stéphane Mésonnier, 2019. "Banks' climate commitments and credit to brown industries: new evidence for France," Working papers 743, Banque de France.
    • Handle: RePEc:bfr:banfra:743
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    Cited by:

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    2. Gambacorta, Leonardo & Pancotto, Livia & Reghezza, Alessio & Spaggiari, Martina, 2022. "Gender diversity in bank boardrooms and green lending: Evidence from euro area credit register data," CEPR Discussion Papers 17650, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Reghezza, Alessio & Altunbas, Yener & Marques-Ibanez, David & Rodriguez d’Acri, Costanza & Spaggiari, Martina, 2022. "Do banks fuel climate change?," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    : Green banks; Greenhouse Gas Emissions; Climate Change.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

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