Decarbonisation of activities

Societe Generale has launched a process aimed at aligning its financing with trajectories compatible with the objectives of the Paris Agreement, starting with the sectors with the highest CO₂ emissions.

Accelerating the decarbonisation of activities

Conscious of the urgent need for climate action and the massive resources required to finance the environmental transition, Societe Generale has adopted a proactive process to decarbonise its financing portfolios.

The strategy adopted by the Group to align its financing portfolios has two main focusses: 

• manage the reduction of the CO₂ footprint of fossil fuels in absolute terms;
• reduce the carbon intensity of portfolios in other sectors with the highest emissions by limiting support for the most carbon-intensive activities and increasing financing for low-carbon solutions. 

2024 marked a major milestone, with the announcement of an acceleration in its alignment efforts. Having met its initial target to reduce its exposure to the oil and gas production sector (-20% by 2025) ahead of schedule, the Group announced a new target of -80% by 2030 compared to 2019, with an interim target of -50% in 2025. This is one of the global banking industry’s most ambitious targets.

*Target of reduction of exposure to the oil and gas production sector, compared to 2019.

Furthermore, Societe Generale targets a withdrawal from the thermal coal sector by 2030 in EU and OECD countries, and by 2040 in the rest of the world. At the end of 2023, the thermal coal portion of Societe Generale’s financing portfolio represented less than 0.1% of total outstanding loans. 

Since 1 January 2024, Societe Generale has stopped providing financial products and services and advisory services to greenfield oil and gas production projects and no longer finances private pure players who generate the majority of their income from upstream oil and gas activities. 

In 2024, the Group also set itself new targets (in terms of lowering its carbon intensity and improving its alignment score) in the automotive, steel, cement, commercial real estate, shipping, aluminium and aviation sectors.