Financial services companies, especially European banks, are often eager to talk about how sustainable finance, the transition to a lower-carbon economy, is a huge business opportunity for them, writes Dominic O’Neill for Euromoney.
Analysts at Morgan Stanley estimate that this energy transition could award wholesale banks extra revenue of between $15 billion and $20 billion in the next three to five years alone.
Ben Caldecott, an academic and founding director of the Oxford Sustainable Finance Group, agrees that banks recognise the commercial opportunity of sustainable finance and want to be seen to be doing good.
“There are bankers that feel they can be getting the business in the short and medium term, even if some of that will lock in infrastructure that we don’t need,” Caldecott says.