Case study: How BNP Paribas works with its clients and customers to encourage sustainable practices

Stakeholder identification and consultation

Please describe which stakeholders (or groups/ types of stakeholders) you have identified, consulted, engaged, collaborated or partnered with for the purpose of implementing the Principles and improving your bank’s impacts. This should include a high-level overview of how your bank has identified relevant stakeholders, what issues were addressed/results achieved and how they fed into the action planning process.

As part of its comprehensive CSR strategy, BNP Paribas prioritizes open and inclusive dialogue with all its stakeholders, aiming to actively listen to, understand, and address their concerns in a fair and effective manner.

The Group has implemented various tools to facilitate the measurement of dialogue with its stakeholders, enabling it to understand their expectations and incorporate them into its strategy, as well as to assess their impact. This dialogue aligns with BNP Paribas’ guidelines, “How BNP Paribas listens to and takes into account the expectations of its stakeholders,” which were updated in 2024.

The dialogue aims to achieve three main objectives: anticipating changes in business developments and enhancing products and services, optimizing risk management, and discovering innovative solutions that have a positive effect on society.

BNP Paribas engages specifically with different stakeholders in the following ways:

• For individual and professional clients, the Group has established a complaint handling process involving an independent mediator.
• The Group actively listens to staff representatives and collaborators via its whistleblowing system.
• Discussions directed by BNP Paribas Asset Management’s voting rights policy as part of its asset management activities.
• The Group engages with suppliers through business reviews, annual “Partners for Strategic Sourcing” events focused on key suppliers, and satisfaction surveys, including the SME Pact barometer.
• Advocacy NGOs are engaged in a constructive and ongoing dialogue regarding the Group’s social and environmental commitments.

To ensure efficient communication, the Group has assigned specific contacts for each stakeholder group:

• An internal mediator, separate from the Procurement & Performance function, assists BNP Paribas suppliers and sub-contractors with dispute resolution and provides an ethical channel for suppliers since late 2022, with contact information available on the Group’s institutional website.
• A dedicated team within Group CSR manages interactions with advocacy NGOs.
• Group Finance handles communications with investors and analysts.
• The Institutional Affairs Department manages relationships with regulatory agencies and public authorities.
• The Communication Group serves as the main point of contact for journalists and media.
• Independent mediators, such as commercial banking networks, are accessible for BNP Paribas clients, consumer associations, and local elected officials.

How did BNP Paribas work with its clients and customers to encourage sustainable practices and enable sustainable economic activities?

In its 2024 PRB Reporting and Self-Assessment Template BNP Paribas reports that it works with its clients and customers to encourage sustainable practices and enable sustainable economic activities as follows:

BNP Paribas is dedicated to fostering strong relationships with each of its clients and consumers, anchored in the highest ethical standards. The Group adheres to specific procedures and implements policies to ensure the sustainability of these relationships. To this end, BNP Paribas has established a Code of Conduct, Sector Policies, and Principles for Responsible Business Conduct that apply at the Group level.

The Group monitors its investment and financing activities across various sectors facing significant environmental, social, and governance (ESG) challenges through sector-specific policies that currently address eight high-impact sectors, including coal-powered electricity generation, oil and gas, palm oil, and agriculture, among others. These policies apply to all business lines, products, services, and all countries where the Group operates. Gradually rolled out since 2010 as part of its CSR strategy, they aim to assist clients in transitioning to more sustainable practices in areas such as climate change, biodiversity, and human rights. The eight sectoral policies published by BNP Paribas are applicable on both project and company levels, as detailed in each policy. The Group conducts annual monitoring to ensure that companies adhere to the policy criteria. Compliance with these sectoral policies, as well as all Group policies, is managed through the first and second lines of defense: the responsibility for implementation lies with the business lines, while oversight is conducted by the RISK function. As a signatory to the Equator Principles, in partnership with 127 financial institutions globally, BNP Paribas collaborates with its clients to identify, assess, and mitigate the environmental and social risks associated with major industrial and infrastructure projects. According to these principles, negative impacts on communities, ecosystems, or the climate must be avoided, minimized, mitigated, or compensated.

Additionally, as part of its sustainable development policy and alongside its financing and investment policies, the Group maintains activity restriction lists based on the level of observed ESG risks. Companies under surveillance are required to implement commitment measures to enable them to sustainably change their practices and lower their ESG risks. For companies on restriction, BNP Paribas prohibits any new financing or investment relationships. The Group has also created an exclusion list for certain products and activities it chooses not to finance, such as driftnets, asbestos fibers, tobacco, and the production and trade of controversial weapons.

Furthermore, the Group is committed to supporting its clients in their long-term energy and ecological transitions toward a more sustainable economy. In this context, BNP Paribas has set ambitious targets for 2025:

• EUR 200 billion aimed at assisting clients in their transition to a low-carbon economy (as noted in indicator 8 of the CSR policy dashboard);
• EUR 4 billion allocated for financing companies that contribute to the preservation of terrestrial and marine biodiversity (as indicated in indicator 9 of the CSR policy dashboard).

UN Principles for Responsible Banking: Accelerating a positive global transition for people and the planet

With over 300 signatory banks representing almost half of the global banking industry, the Principles for Responsible Banking are the world’s foremost sustainable banking framework. Through these Principles, the banking community takes action to align core strategies, decision-making, lending and investment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and international agreements such as the Paris Climate Agreement.

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References:

This case study is based on published information by BNP Paribas, located at the link below. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses. However, we made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the report’s meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original please revert to the following link:

https://cdn-group.bnpparibas.com/uploads/file/bnp_paribas_2024_prb_reporting.pdf

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