The three pillars of our climate strategy

At Close Brothers, we recognise the importance of addressing the threat of climate change, and the urgency needed in tackling the environmental, economic and social impacts that it brings, noting that these extend across all sections of society, affecting all key stakeholder groups.

As a group supporting many sectors of the UK economy through our lending, deposit taking and securities trading, we recognise the important role we can play in helping people and businesses transition to a low carbon future. Our ongoing work to identify the risks and opportunities of climate change to our business model remains a key area of strategic focus.  

There are three pillars to our climate strategy.

1. Achieving net zero operations

Addressing the impact our own emissions have on the environment remains a key focus for us, demonstrating our commitment to our wider net zero ambition.

We continue to make significant progress in reducing our operational Scope 1 and 2 emissions and have seen a 41.6% reduction since 2019.

Our monitoring and calculation of operational impacts continues to advance – improving the data quality and availability. We also are seeing the benefits of supply chain engagement on climate action both through our own engagement with our largest suppliers as well as engagement with some of our own business customers, where we represent a proportion of their supply chain emissions.

Our workplace team continues to work closely with our facilities management contractor to progress our net zero strategy for all of our properties, culminating in the team finalising our net zero strategy for our estate and to develop a business case and investment options for the group to cover energy efficiency, heating electrification and renewable energy investments.

Our drive towards having a net zero emission car fleet has continued, with our fleet now 53.6% fully electric at 31 July 2024. Our efforts to transition our car fleet has driven our fleet average emissions down further, with CO2 emissions for our car fleet now 19.1 gCO2 /km (2023: 23.5 gCO2 /km) at 31 July 2024.

2. Reducing our financed emissions

Understanding the climate impacts across all of our lending, deposit taking and securities trading, alongside developing new green growth opportunities in our current and future markets, are crucial steps in developing our climate transition plan and aligning our financing to our net zero commitments.

We continue to develop our climate assessment of the assets and businesses in our lending, deposit taking and securities trading activities.

As members of Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials, we work closely with other peer banks to develop best practice data sourcing and carbon accounting for our range of financing activities – improving our understanding of the impacts of these assets and businesses and supporting our ongoing development of our climate strategy.

3. Financing the transition

We recognise the significant growth opportunities for green asset lending across several of our existing asset classes, as well as new ones. As a specialist, adaptable lender, with deep understanding of our customers’ needs, we can support our clients in their transition to new, cleaner technologies to meet their own sustainability targets.

One of our largest lending sectors is road transport and we are already seeing deployment of battery electric vehicles (“BEVs”) by our fleet customers in both passenger and goods vehicles, as they seek to reduce their costs, carbon emissions and local air pollution. As we focus on growing our lending for BEVs, over the last two years, we have already we have already funded £316.4 million.

Successfully achieving net-zero is no small task. But by working closely with our partners and suppliers to minimise operational impacts, re-alignment of financing and assisting our customers in meeting their transitional targets, as well as enabling the deployment of cleaner technologies and business model adaptation through our green growth lending strategy, we continue to help people and businesses transition to a lower carbon future.

_{Note: Figures in this document are at 31 July 2024 unless otherwise stated.}

_{Date: April 2025}