Italian Bank UniCredit signed a deal with conservation group WWF in order to set the goal to reduce CO2 emissions by 30% by 2020, supporting the EU energy goal – also known as ’20-20-20’ – defined in the “Climate & Energy Package”.
Environmental sustainability and networking are two focal points for Unicredit Group that has presented a pilot project in Italy, began a venture with the World Wildlife Fund Italy (WWF Italy), to implement a strategy addressing issues of environmental sustainability. The Group, together with WWF, is now planning to develop an innovative model in the banking industry that will measure the actual environmental impact of the loan portfolio in terms of GHG emissions, and therefore make it possible to steer lending decisions according to these criteria, enabling the Bank to contribute to the development of the Green Economy.
House Efficiency is a loan product targeted, at this preliminary stage, at Group employees in Italy. It will be launched over the next few days and later extended to the other countries where the Group operates. It is an inexpensive loan supported by energy consulting services. This loan product will generate real benefits such as savings on energy bills and CO2 emission reduction, which will be monitored and certified for reporting.
For the residential sector in Italy, in order to reduce CO2 emissions by one ton every year on average, a family would need to invest €4,000 in energy efficiency measures at their homes, whereas SMEs would reduce their annual CO2 emissions by 12 tons by investing €10,000. This means that €1 million in green loans granted for energy efficiency can help achieve significant reductions in CO2 emissions: in households around 250 tons – as a basis for comparison consider that 250 tons of CO2 emissions saved correspond to the emissions of around 110 cars over one year. In SMEs, around 1,200 tons – considering that correspond to 300 round-trip flights between Rome and New York for one person.
Officials at WWF, which has already agreed partnerships with companies such as IBM and Nokia to reduce emissions, said the deal was groundbreaking because it would affect not just the company’s own emissions, but its clients’. “We hope a Green Deal like this one between UniCredit and WWF will be an inspiration for others,” said Kim Carstensen, head of WWF’s Global Climate Deal Initiative. “We need more real action by real people.”
Image courtesy of net_efekt on Flickr under Creative Commons
