Bank of England lets big polluters slip through the net

Reclaim Finance argues that the Bank of England's (BoE) strategy to decarbonize its corporate sector purchases scheme (CBPS) is insufficient. While the BoE has implemented a Paris-aligned phase-out of coal, the organization claims the framework contains loopholes for oil and gas developers, relies on a slow 'escalation ladder' for divestment, and excludes scope 3 emissions from its targets and scorecard. The document also references quantitative research suggesting the BoE's 'market neutrality' approach may prevent a substantive reduction in the portfolio's carbon intensity.

• The Bank of England's CBPS targets—achieving net zero by 2050 and reducing Weighted Average Carbon Intensity (WACI) by 25% by 2025—are flawed because they exclude scope 3 emissions, which represent a significant portion of greenhouse gas emissions.
• While the BoE has established strict criteria to phase out coal mining and thermal coal by 2025 in the UK and 2030 globally, it has failed to exclude companies developing new fossil fuel supply projects, such as Royal Dutch Shell and TotalEnergies.
• The BoE's 'tilting' strategy and 'escalation ladder' for addressing poor climate performers are described as slow and uncertain, with a three-year wait to make offenders ineligible and a five-year wait to divest.
• The scorecard used to rank companies is criticized because approximately half of the total scores are based on disclosure requirements, and it ignores scope 3 emissions in both the required reduction targets and the analysis of past absolute emissions.
• Quantitative analysis by Yannis Dafermos and others indicates that the BoE framework's adherence to 'market neutrality' prevents it from reducing the representation of carbon-intensive activities and will not substantively reduce the CBPS portfolio's WACI.

APA

admin (2022). Bank of England lets big polluters slip through the net. Reclaim Finance. https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/2022/02/07/bank-of-england-lets-big-polluters-slip-through-the-net/

Chicago

admin. Bank of England lets big polluters slip through the net. Reclaim Finance, 2022. https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/2022/02/07/bank-of-england-lets-big-polluters-slip-through-the-net/.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=admin |title=Bank of England lets big polluters slip through the net |publisher=Reclaim Finance |date=7 February 2022 |url=https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/2022/02/07/bank-of-england-lets-big-polluters-slip-through-the-net/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{admin2022bank, author = {admin}, title = {{Bank of England lets big polluters slip through the net}}, publisher = {Reclaim Finance}, year = {2022}, month = feb, url = {https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/2022/02/07/bank-of-england-lets-big-polluters-slip-through-the-net/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }