Sustainability practices stocktake: how banks and insurers have progressed

Financial institutions have a leading role to play in shaping our sustainable future, and a strong need to reboot and shift to a more responsible finance model. As a core component of the economy, they bear the responsibility of upholding rigour and resilience in their risk management. With time running out to achieve a move towards nature-positive outcomes, what sustainability progress have banks and insurers made?

Mazars’ latest global report, Sustainability practices stocktake: how banks and insurers have progressed, helps to answer this question.

Using insights gained from more than 400 senior executives in banks and insurers across Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia-Pacific, Africa and the Middle East, and from Mazars’ experts, this report details where financial institutions stand today in their progression towards more sustainable practices, and identifies the significant sustainability-related knowledge gaps that still exist in this sector.

Key findings include:

Almost all banks and insurers (99%) have allocated responsibility for sustainability-related matters to members of their senior management.
Firms identify their most significant knowledge gaps are in socially-related sustainability issues such as employee and human rights matters (62%) and assessing climate risk drivers (60%).
Nearly half of respondents (46%) incorporate sustainability considerations when reassessing their business models.
Most respondents (90%) use external credit rating information on counterparties to evaluate climate-related and environmental, and energy-related risks.
Over half of institutions (53%) reveal sustainability-related information through disclosures that accompany sustainable and ESG financial products.