Case study: How Spar Nord takes action on its PRB targets: climate change mitigation and resource efficiency and circular economy

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.

Spar Nord actively engages with its primary stakeholders—including customers, employees, investors, suppliers, regulators, and senior management. Their input is essential for understanding the significance of the Impact, Risks to, and Opportunities (IROs) related to the material sustainability issues Spar Nord identifies.

In 2024, as part of its preparations for its inaugural EU CSRD report, Spar Nord carried out engagement activities with both internal and external stakeholders. For further details on Spar Nord’s stakeholder engagement process, please refer to its Annual Report 2024, pages 60–66.

What actions were taken by Spar Nord on its PRB targets, climate change mitigation and resource efficiency and circular economy?

In its 2024 PRB Progress Summary Spar Nord reports that it took the following actions on its PRB targets, climate change mitigation and resource efficiency and circular economy:

• SMART Target 1: Climate change mitigation
• To achieve its climate goal of aligning its portfolio with net zero by 2050, Spar Nord has established several sub-targets focused on reducing financed emissions from Lending and Asset Management, as well as lowering emissions from its own operations. Spar Nord’s targets and initiatives are outlined in its Climate Plan, which serves as the bank’s transition strategy in accordance with the EU CSRD. Progress on the Climate Plan is reported annually alongside the bank’s financial statements. For more information, please refer to the Spar Nord Climate Plan and Spar Nord’s Annual Report 2024, pages 67–78.

• SMART Target 2: Resource efficiency and circular economy
• Spar Nord has conducted initial screenings of its business lending and investment portfolios using the EU Taxonomy Compass to assess their alignment with a Circular Economy. In addition, Spar Nord performed a mapping based on sector overview from the UN PRB’s guidance, “Circular Economy as an Enabler for Responsible Banking.” This mapping covered both the bank’s commercial lending and investment activities.
• Following these screening efforts, Spar Nord has not yet established a baseline or set specific targets for Resource Efficiency & Circular Economy due to the complexity of its operations and limited data insights. However, Spar Nord has adopted a progressive approach to target setting, with the intention to continue engaging in dialogue with its business customers regarding resource efficiency and circular economy practices. In 2025, Spar Nord planned to focus on identifying financing opportunities that support circular business models—such as recycling technologies and sharing economies—that extend product life and support resource efficiency. Additionally, Spar Nord aims to enhance data collection to establish a baseline and set quantitative targets and KPIs related to this impact area. For more details, please refer to Spar Nord’s Annual Report 2024, pages 77–78.

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 Spar Nord, 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://media.sparnord.dk/com/aboutsparnord/esg/PRB-Progress-Summary-2024.pdf

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