Société Générale : des engagements climat de façade

Reclaim Finance criticizes Société Générale for maintaining high levels of fossil fuel financing despite public pledges to exit coal and reduce oil and gas exposure. The document highlights the bank's continued support for Arctic extraction, shale gas, and liquefied natural gas (LNG), as well as its use of semantic loopholes to fund coal-heavy entities like EPH.

• Between 2016 and 2020, Société Générale provided 73 billion US$ in financing to fossil fuels, with 11 billion US$ allocated to fossil fuel developers in 2020 alone.
• Despite a 2018 pledge to stop financing Arctic extraction and oil sands, Société Générale increased funding in these sectors by only excluding companies that derive more than 50% of reserves or revenue from Arctic activities, allowing companies like Total to remain eligible.
• Société Générale is a major financier of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and shale gas, ranking as the 7th largest bank globally for LNG development financing with over 6 billion US$ between 2016 and 2020. It has provided advisory mandates for projects such as Rio Grande LNG and Driftwood LNG.
• The bank's commitment to reduce its exposure to oil and gas extraction by 10% by 2025 is criticized for focusing on stocks rather than flows and for excluding diversified companies or those building new infrastructure like pipelines and LNG terminals.
• Société Générale continues to support coal through semantic loopholes, such as participating in a 1 billion US$ transaction for the European energy company EPH, arguing that its exclusion policy applies to subsidiaries rather than parent companies.

APA

admin (2021). Société Générale : des engagements climat de façade. Reclaim Finance. https://reclaimfinance.org/site/2021/05/15/societe-generale-des-engagements-climat-de-facade/

Chicago

admin. Société Générale : des engagements climat de façade. Reclaim Finance, 2021. https://reclaimfinance.org/site/2021/05/15/societe-generale-des-engagements-climat-de-facade/.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=admin |title=Société Générale : des engagements climat de façade |publisher=Reclaim Finance |date=15 May 2021 |url=https://reclaimfinance.org/site/2021/05/15/societe-generale-des-engagements-climat-de-facade/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{admin2021socit, author = {admin}, title = {{Société Générale : des engagements climat de façade}}, publisher = {Reclaim Finance}, year = {2021}, month = may, url = {https://reclaimfinance.org/site/2021/05/15/societe-generale-des-engagements-climat-de-facade/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }