Nature
Protecting nature
The rational management of natural resources and the preservation of biodiversity are vital to the sustainability of the ecosystems on which human life and economic activity depend. These ecosystems are essential for agricultural production, the pollination of crops, access to clean drinking water, regulating disease and the climate and keeping our soils healthy.
The rapid depletion of our biodiversity on a global scale risks preventing these ecosystems from fully playing their role, representing a major challenge for our planet. The global rise in temperatures is accelerating the erosion of our ecosystem services, and so climate and nature issues have to be tackled in tandem. In December 2022, COP15 concluded with the adoption of a historic agreement aimed at steering global action for nature through to 2030: the new Global Biodiversity Framework. Within a context marked by a decline in nature that is jeopardising the survival of millions of species and disrupting the daily lives of billions of people, the aim of the Global Biodiversity Plan is to halt and reverse this phenomenon via 23 targets to be achieved by 2030.
Contributing to nature preservation in favour of the environmental transition.
In November 2022, within the framework of its participation in the Act4Nature international Alliance, Societe Generale set itself concrete and measurable targets to protect nature, with implications for the entire Group. These public objectives were reached in 2024, and an assessment will be published in 2025.
Managing our activities’ impacts on and risks to nature
The Group is committed to complying with stringent environmental and social standards regarding its banking and financial product and service offer. To this end, it has developed robust environmental and social risk management measures.
Since 2007, Societe Generale has applied the Equator Principles, a framework for managing project financing risks that incorporates the risks of biodiversity erosion.
Additionally, the Group has developed a set of sector-specific policies. The latter include specific criteria aimed at preserving biodiversity within the framework of its commercial relations with its clients and the financing and investments it undertakes in these sectors. They are regularly updated to incorporate specific criteria to protect nature, notably with regard to protected and biodiversity-rich regions. (For further information, see the “Sector-specific policies” page)
Within the framework of the efforts deployed by the Group to help fight deforestation, Societe Generale’s agriculture policy was strengthened in 2022 and again in 2024, with strict criteria applicable to clients involved in the South American soybean and beef and palm oil sectors. Within this framework, the evaluation of clients with regard to deforestation has been extended to those in the cocoa, coffee, rubber and timber sectors.
The private bank’s asset management activities and insurance activities have incorporated the inclusion of the battle against deforestation in the definition of their investment universes and have assessed the footprint of their portfolios on biodiversity, in order to better take this into account in their investment processes.
Moreover, the Group is working to measure the financial risks and impacts associated with nature on its credit portfolio. To this end, the Group has undertaken a mapping of the sectors it finances depending on the severity of their impacts and dependencies on nature, based on the ENCORE (Exploring Natural Capital Opportunities Risks and Exposure) methodology.
Following this analysis, Societe Generale undertook a pilot project with Quantis on the power utilities sector to strengthen its methodology for measuring the impact of its activities on nature. This report shares the initial learnings of this approach.
At the same time, the Group has developed a financial vulnerability indicator, based on the assessment of the physical and transition risks associated with nature, at industrial sector level and sovereign level.
Part of a collective approach to the environment
Societe Generale’s actions in favour of biodiversity are part of a collective approach: the Bank is assisting its clients with their environmental initiatives and working with its stakeholders to make collective progress on this issue.
The Group thus participates in coalitions and work groups that develop common methodologies, notably via these three benchmark initiatives:
- the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) Forum, an international initiative that provides a common framework for assessing and disclosing nature-related impacts, dependencies, risks and opportunities;
- the Corporate Programme of the Science-Based Targets Network (SBTN), a global network that aims to provide companies with the scientific means to manage their impacts on nature along their entire value chain;
- in 2022, Societe Generale signed, via its insurance and private banking activities, the Finance for Biodiversity Pledge alongside other financial institutions to promote the protection and restoration of biodiversity through their investments.
The Societe Generale Corporate Foundation, the spearhead of the Group’s global philanthropy programme, supports the preservation of nature, and in particular biodiversity and the oceans, and the raising of awareness of these issues by providing its support to identified projects in these areas.
Developing financing solutions to protect our biodiversity
The creation of dedicated banking solutions is another lever enabling the Societe Generale group to take practical action to protect biodiversity and support its clients’ environmental transition.
Societe Generale’s Corporate and Investment Bank assists its large corporate and investor clients with their biodiversity preservation strategies and provides solutions to finance “Nature-Based Solutions” projects. Nature-Based Solutions provide a response to societal challenges through actions that aim to protect, sustainably manage and restore natural and modified ecosystems, benefitting both local inhabitants and nature. (also see the “Supporting the transition” page)
As a responsible real-estate developer, SOGEPROM, the Group’s real-estate development subsidiary, has made a commitment to all its stakeholders with the Pacte 3B: Bas carbone, Biodiversité, Bien-vivre (low carbon, biodiversity, wellbeing).
In 2024, Societe Generale Assurances launched, with ten other French institutional investors, a market initiative, on the model of the “Objectif Biodiversité” fund, devoted to boosting biodiversity in financial investment portfolios.