En finançant EPH, la Société Générale mine son plan de sortie du charbon

Reclaim Finance criticizes Société Générale for participating in a 1 billion euro loan to the EPH group, alleging that the bank uses semantic loopholes in its exclusion policy to continue financing coal-heavy entities. The document highlights that EPH produces 40 million tonnes of coal annually, far exceeding the bank's 10 million tonne threshold, yet avoids exclusion because the policy targets extraction entities rather than parent companies. The author warns that this approach could also allow the financing of other mining giants like Glencore and notes that other banks in the EPH consortium, such as UniCredit and ING, may be acting inconsistently with their own coal exit schedules.

• Société Générale, along with UniCredit, ING, and Crédit Suisse, contributed to a 1 billion euro loan for the EPH group, despite EPH's coal assets (8 GW of plants and 40 million tonnes of coal per year) generating over 20% of its revenue.
• The bank's coal exclusion policy is criticized for being ineffective because it only applies to 'entities in the thermal coal extraction sector' (legal entities directly operating or owning extraction assets), allowing the bank to finance parent companies like EPH that hold these assets through subsidiaries.
• EPH's coal production of 40 million tonnes per year is four times the 10 million tonne annual ceiling set by Société Générale's exclusion policy.
• The document suggests that the bank's current policy framework could similarly allow the financing of Glencore, which produced nearly 130 million tonnes of coal in 2020, exceeding the bank's exclusion threshold by 13 times.
• Société Générale committed to stop providing new financial products or services by the end of 2021 to clients without a transition plan aligned with its 2030/2040 thermal coal exit goals, yet EPH intends to operate coal assets in Europe beyond 2030.

APA

admin (2021). En finançant EPH, la Société Générale mine son plan de sortie du charbon. Reclaim Finance. https://reclaimfinance.org/site/2021/04/15/en-financant-eph-la-societe-generale-mine-son-plan-de-sortie-du-charbon/

Chicago

admin. En finançant EPH, la Société Générale mine son plan de sortie du charbon. Reclaim Finance, 2021. https://reclaimfinance.org/site/2021/04/15/en-financant-eph-la-societe-generale-mine-son-plan-de-sortie-du-charbon/.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=admin |title=En finançant EPH, la Société Générale mine son plan de sortie du charbon |publisher=Reclaim Finance |date=15 April 2021 |url=https://reclaimfinance.org/site/2021/04/15/en-financant-eph-la-societe-generale-mine-son-plan-de-sortie-du-charbon/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{admin2021finanant, author = {admin}, title = {{En finançant EPH, la Société Générale mine son plan de sortie du charbon}}, publisher = {Reclaim Finance}, year = {2021}, month = apr, url = {https://reclaimfinance.org/site/2021/04/15/en-financant-eph-la-societe-generale-mine-son-plan-de-sortie-du-charbon/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }