BBVA USA has unveiled its second product geared towards environmental sustainability, announcing a rate discount on secured term loans for fuel-efficient commercial vehicles.

More than a third of the global banking industry has signed the Principles for Responsible Banking, which this month celebrates its one-year anniversary. This milestone demonstrates the sector’s commitment to sustainability and aligning its business activity to the promises made in the Paris Agreement and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Today, international banks BBVA, BNP Paribas, ING, Société Générale and Standard Chartered (also known as ‘the Katowice Banks’) published a report on the application of the PACTA methodology, designed to steer their credit portfolios towards the objective of the Paris Climate Agreement. This report aims at helping banking peers to quickly understand and apply this methodology and thus publish comparable results.

BBVA USA has launched a sustainability-focused commercial real estate loan for clients across its footprint, marking a milestone in the bank’s new 5-year strategic plan implemented in January 2020.  

• BBVA invested €40.6 million in sustainable and social programs in Latin America in 2019
• In its 13 years of service, the BBVA Microfinance Foundation has helped more than five million people
• BBVA delivers innovative financial education programs in Mexico
• BBVA Argentina is the first private bank to launch a line of personal eco-loans
• BBVA in Colombia closes a line of green guarantees to build the Bogota metro
• In Peru, BBVA leads the way in using the Environmental Ministry’s carbon footprint tool
• Sustainable finance in the region: BBVA, breaking new ground with deals in the wholesale market

Within the framework of its Global Eco-efficiency Plan 2016-2020, BBVA recently signed an agreement in Argentina to buy electricity from wind farms, a clean source of electricity that uses wind turbines to transform wind energy into electric power.

Capital Finance International has recognized BBVA as ‘Best Sustainable Bank in Spain 2020’. The London-based publication highlights the bank’s sustainability and climate change-related initiatives, as well as the way the bank defines a roadmap with opportunities and obligations linked to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

April 2020 marked a high point in U.S. investments in environmental, social and governance (ESG)-themed exchange-traded funds in April 2020, according to analysts with BBVA Global Market Research. Nearly $2.8 billion flowed into equity and fixed income ETFs during the month, compared to the previous record of $2.4 billion in January 2020.

BBVA’s Turkish franchise has set the goal of reducing its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 29 percent by 2025 and 71 percent by 2035. The announcement comes as part of the bank joining the Carbon Disclosure Project’s (CDP) Science-Based Targets (SBT), the most important environmental data platform in the world.

BBVA has added a new feature to its financial aggregator One View. Using data analytics, it allows companies to find out the amount of greenhouse gases they emit into the atmosphere with their daily activities. At a time when SMEs and companies’ main concern is how to face the gradual lifting of lockdown restrictions during the health crisis, finding out their carbon footprint is the first step toward taking action that helps them to reduce their energy costs while having a positive impact on the planet. With this information, they can also explore new, more sustainable lines of business that will facilitate their recovery in a new context.

The lender and the property-owning real estate group strengthen their commitment to sustainability with the formalization of a €525 million green loan. The green loan is the conversion of a syndicated loan signed in 2016. BBVA, besides being one of the participants in the loan, is one of the sustainable coordinators who have made this change possible, to maximize the sustainability of Gmp’s office building development projects.

Ebru Dildar Edin, Vice President of Garanti BBVA, participated in a talk organized by Turkey’s Business Council for Sustainable Development (SKD Türkiye) to discuss the social challenges following the coronavirus pandemic.

Climate emergency is one of the greatest challenges facing humanity. Besides transport, the agro-livestock or heavy industry sectors are major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. Our digital activity, linked to our traceable digital footprint, also contributes to our carbon footprint.

The appropriate design of a product can help reduce its environmental impact and make it last longer. More and more companies are turning to materials that are more durable and easier to recycle. One of the key aspects of product creation is predicting the possible repairs owner may have to make.

The European Commission has published its taxonomy for sustainable finance, a classification instrument to help financial players and companies determine which activities qualify as sustainable. Investments in projects and activities that pursue the European Union’s environmental goals contribute to the transition towards a low carbon economy.

One of the paradoxical consequences of the global crisis triggered by the COVID-19 is its impact on the environment. The quarantine is causing sharp declines in pollutant emissions across the world’s most populated cities.

2020 is a crucial year for women and girls, everywhere. We celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women and adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. It also marks the five-year milestone of the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals. This year’s 64th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) was deemed to be the big commemoration and opportunity to reaffirm these mandates. There are still significant and pervasive gender gaps in the economic and political participation of women all over the world. Progress is sluggish and if we are serious about achieving the 2030 Agenda we must step up the pace.

The 2020 BBVA Classic, the annual charity game set to take place on March 27 between the Houston Dynamo and Cruz Azul, will benefit environmental advocacy group Citizens’ Environmental Coalition, the bank and the team announced today.

UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12 sets out the need to foster sustainable and environmentally-responsible consumption and production patterns. Within the scope of this goal, one of the key strategies that countries need to embrace is the so-called “three Rs” approach: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle, to ensure that waste generation and management is as sustainable as possible.

BBVA often is quoted as saying that the future of finance is financing the future – in part, this means that the bank believes that financial institutions play a key role in the transition to a more sustainable economy.

The repercussions of climate change and the ensuing environmental commitment made by governments, the business community, and society as a whole have produced an onslaught of various terms that amount to a full glossary bound by sustainability. Carbon footprint is one of these terms.

The Atlantic Council in Turkey and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) recently held the ‘Renewable Energy Outlook Conference: Financing, Investment, Regulation, and New Technologies in Turkey, Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Western Balkans’.

In an interview published in the latest edition of Compromiso RSE, Antoni Ballabriga, Global Director of Responsible Business at BBVA and Co-Chair of the Global Steering Committee for the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI), stressed that: “The financial sector’s sustainable partnership with the United Nations is more active than ever.” An initiative he feels promotes a financial industry that has a positive impact,  serving people and the planet. “It’s something that it hopes to achieve by inspiring, informing and enabling financial institutions to improve people’s quality of life without compromising that of future generations,” he explains.

The BBVA Foundation has honored “the fundamental contributions” of American researcher Kerry Emanuel to understanding the essential physics of hurricanes with the Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Climate Change category. The twelfth edition of the awards has recognized the pioneer work of this professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), for being the first to link this phenomenon with the warming of sea surface waters driven by climate change.

SALT is a unique, constantly growing cultural organization and plays an important role in raising awareness about Turkey’s cultural heritage and creating collective memory.

Held in Madrid and with Chile presiding, COP25, has come to an end following nearly two weeks of intense debate, the presentation of reports on the threats of climate change and proposals to tackle the different challenges.

The Spanish environmental company EDF Solar has installed 523 solar panels with a production capacity of 236.182 kWh/year at BBVA Group headquarters. As a result, the bank will reduce CO2 emissions in the atmosphere by 106 metric tonnes.

Climate change is “probably the greatest business disruption humankind has ever faced,” BBVA Group executive chairman Carlos Torres Vila said at the Madrid Climate Change Conference. That’s why “sustainability is a core part of our strategy. The future of finance lies in financing the future,” he stressed.

The rise in the global temperature has negative effects on the planet – effects that are difficult to revert in some cases. Increasing frequent heat waves, devasating fires – like the recent fires in California – and natural disasters like tropical cyclones, floods and droughts, have had an enormous impact on the environment and socioeconomic development.

BBVA participated at a conference in Luxembourg organized by United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI). During the forum, which coincided with the start of the Climate Summit in Madrid, BBVA laid out its strategy to help its customers transition toward a low-carbon economy and integrate climate risks into their decision-making.

Economists’ warnings about global warming are nothing new; their voices join those of scientists, ecologists, and international organizations. There are many Nobel Prize winners among those raising the alarm.

The Roca brothers of El Celler de Can Roca fame have created the dishes that will be served to prime ministers, heads of state, government officials, and the United Nations’ Secretary-General at the opening lunch of the next Climate Summit. The summit gets underway next Monday, December 2, in Madrid. The meal, sponsored by BBVA with a menu prepared by the Roca brothers, is based on local Spanish products and a cuisine that is amenable to small-scale farmers. “Cuisine is a transformative tool that can raise awareness and advocate for sustainability,” Joan Roca stated.

High level government representatives from the energy, industry, and finance fields participated alongside business leaders at the Eighth Turkish Wind Energy Congress (TWEC 2019). Experts at the event agreed, “We have created a success story in energy, with wind energy leading the sector.” The event was held in Ankara and organized by theTurkish Wind Energy Association (TWEA).

Human beings have always dreamed of magnificent cities. The imagined and mythical, like the so-called Lyonesse not far from the coast of Cornwall, or the Seven Cities of Cíbola located somewhere in the southwest of North America, or El Dorado, hidden in the pre-Colombian jungle. Surely behind these dreams looms the aspiration to find a model of harmonious coexistence. These would be cities attuned with the natural environment that surrounds them. With hanging gardens like those in ancient Babylonia or cloistered in a precious valley like Machu Pichhu, although these two examples actually did exist.

Between January 2016 and December 2018, BBVA Group reduced its energy consumption by 7 percent per employee. This savings reaffirms the bank’s commitment to sustainability. By December 2018, the Group had hit its targets of having 35 percent of the energy it consumes coming from renewable sources and reducing its CO2 output by 27 percent compared to 2016. October 21 marks World Energy Savings Day and intends to raise awareness about energy efficiency and the need for responsible and sustainable guidelines governing the consumption of the planet’s resources.

Garanti BBVA joined 129 other banks from around the world in signing the United Nations Environment Program Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) Principles for Responsible Banking at the UN General Assembly in New York. The participating banks represent over $47 trillion in total assets. By signing these principles, Garanti BBVA and five other Turkish banks – ING, the Investment and Development Bank, Şekerbank, TSKB and Yapı Kredi – formalized their commitment to leading the way for sustainability in the country.

Roger Launius, former chief historian at NASA was at BBVA headquarters to deliver one of the featured speeches for Values Day: “Getting to the Moon: the value of the most important idea in human history.”  Launius used the history of the Apollo program and man’s landing on the Moon as examples of two of BBVA’s corporate values: ‘We are one team,’ and ‘We think big.’

BBVA has named the winner of its newly created Open Talent Award for Sustainability as Australian last mile start-up AgUnity.

Garanti BBVA has been awarded the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) platinum certificate for the overall sustainability of its headquarters building in Istanbul. It is the only bank in Turkey to have received such recognition, which is one of the most rigorous green building rating systems in the world, developed by the American Council of Green Buildings (USGBC).

“The financial sector’s Collective Commitment for Climate Action is an important step toward working as a true global coalition. It is the industry’s most ambitious commitment to the climate,” explained Antoni Ballabriga, the Global Head of Responsible Business at BBVA, during his presentation at one of the round table discussions taking place in parallel to the climate conference held in New York this week.

World Car-free Day is held on September 22 to raise awareness about the environmental impact of large-scale car use. BBVA Momentum, the bank’s program that supports social entrepreneurship, has backed businesses that are working for sustainable, more environmentally friendly transportation.

The term agribusiness is used to refer to economic activities derived from or connected to farm products. In other words, crop production, as well as crop processing, transportation and distribution. Agriculture and all of its economic, social and demographic derivatives… a sector that has an impact on practically all the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

• U.S. is one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), making its involvement in the fight against climate change a matter of critical importance.
• Efforts outside the federal government could enable the U.S. to fulfill two-thirds of its commitment to reduce GHG emissions.

Following a six-month public consultative process, the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) has this week released the final official versions of the UNEP FI Principles for Responsible Banking and their supporting framework documents. Endorsed by more than 100 financial institutions ahead of their 22 September global launch. BBVA is one of the 30 Founding Banks for this initiative.

Over eight million tons of plastic per year. As part of its Pledge 2025, BBVA works to attain the United Nations’ (UN) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14  by protecting marine life and financing ecology and biology research teams. The goal is the conservation of habitats and/or endangered species in Spain.