Are banks retreating from net zero commitments, and what does it mean for corporate borrowers?

Yes, according to new research reported by edie, banks globally are scaling back their climate commitments. The research found that lenders are weakening policies on lending to high emission companies and disclosing less information about their transition plans. Three separate shifts are described, and together they point to a softening of the net zero posture that many institutions adopted in earlier years.

The finding lands alongside a separate conversation in the investor community. At the PRI in Person event in Amsterdam, People's Partnership CIO Dan Mikulskis raised what was described as a provocative question during a panel: whether net zero should be dropped as an organising principle. The remark was framed as a question, not a policy, but it shows the framing itself is being tested by people inside the sector.

For corporate borrowers, the implications cut in more than one direction. Weaker bank policies on lending to high emission companies could ease access to finance for carbon intensive businesses in the short term. Reduced disclosure on bank transition plans, however, makes it harder for those same borrowers, and for their stakeholders, to understand what lenders expect from them over time.

CFOs and sustainability leads should treat this as a reason to document their own transition plans carefully rather than relying on lender requirements to set the bar. Under CSRD and ESRS E1, transition plan disclosure is a company obligation that does not depend on what a bank asks for. A thin lender disclosure environment does not reduce the reporting expected of the borrower.

What to watch is whether the retreat described in the research spreads further, and how supervisors and investors respond to reduced transparency. The sources do not say whether regulators plan to act. For now, the safest assumption for ESG teams is that scrutiny of corporate transition plans will come from reporting standards and investors rather than from banks alone.