BPCE: A growing climate delay

Reclaim Finance criticizes BPCE for its failure to implement ambitious exclusion policies for the oil and gas sector, noting that it continues to provide bond financing to major hydrocarbon developers and supports LNG expansion. The report highlights that BPCE is the only major French bank without decarbonization targets to reduce oil and gas exposure and maintains direct financing for gas fields, contrary to emerging European standards.

• BPCE continues to provide significant bond financing to major hydrocarbon developers; in 2024, it supported Saudi Aramco in raising US$6 billion and TotalEnergies in raising US$6.9 billion.
• BPCE is the only major French bank that has not established decarbonization targets to reduce its exposure to the oil and gas sector, instead committing only to a 70% reduction in financed emissions by 2030 using a calculation method that may artificially reduce figures.
• BPCE maintains support for liquefied natural gas (LNG) expansion, including US$7.7 billion in capital-raising rounds for Energy Transfer in 2024 and backing the initial public offering of Venture Global LNG.
• While BPCE has stopped direct support for new oil fields, it still provides direct financing for gas fields, placing it behind 11 of the 20 largest European banks and all other major French banks that have ended direct financing for all upstream oil and gas projects.
• BPCE's exclusion policy for LNG export terminals only applies to greenfield terminals powered by more than 25% shale gas, thereby omitting brownfield terminal expansions such as Sabine Pass LNG.

APA

Manickawasagar, A. (2025). BPCE: A growing climate delay. Reclaim Finance. https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/2025/04/10/bpce-a-growing-climate-delay/

Chicago

Manickawasagar, Aatiraï. BPCE: A growing climate delay. Reclaim Finance, 2025. https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/2025/04/10/bpce-a-growing-climate-delay/.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=Manickawasagar |first1=Aatiraï |title=BPCE: A growing climate delay |publisher=Reclaim Finance |date=10 April 2025 |url=https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/2025/04/10/bpce-a-growing-climate-delay/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{manickawasagar2025bpce, author = {Manickawasagar, Aatiraï}, title = {{BPCE: A growing climate delay}}, publisher = {Reclaim Finance}, year = {2025}, month = apr, url = {https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/2025/04/10/bpce-a-growing-climate-delay/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }