Droughts are abnormally dry periods, in which multiple factors are involved and which have important consequences for the environment and societies. An estimated 55 million people are directly affected by droughts every year, and they could harm as many as three out of four people worldwide by 2050, according to the UN. BBVA delves into this complex phenomenon in the new report 'Cuando falta el agua: claves para hacer frente a la sequía' (When water is scarce: keys to face drought).

World Meteorological Organization (WMO) experts have just warned that El Niño, a natural phenomenon that arises in the Pacific Ocean and shapes weather around the world, has started up again. So their forecasts, which a few months ago indicated that there was a 55% chance that El Niño would re-emerge in the second half of 2023, have proven to be accurate. But this is bad news. Because El Niño poses the danger of a new global temperature change.

Spanish households with higher consumption emit more CO2 than those with lower expenditure, although this difference is accentuated by transport use patterns, while emissions from food and energy are less unevenly distributed. By age, adults aged between 35 and 40 emit 6.9 tons of CO2 per year on average, 10% more than the average Spanish adult, according to the report ‘The Carbon Footprint of Spanish Households’ by BBVA Research.

In the last decade, the average social well-being in the countries that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) would have declined approximately two percent if the damage caused by CO2 emissions had been internalized, thus avoiding the worst future scenarios of global warming, according to BBVA Research.

Paleoclimatologists James Zachos (University of California at Santa Cruz, USA) and Ellen Thomas (Yale University and Wesleyan University, USA) identified an anomalous episode  in the planet’s history in which massive emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere occurred, causing a global temperature rise of between 5 and 6 ºC and a massive extinction of species in the deep ocean, which has provided “a very valuable analogy of anthropogenic climate change”, according to the jury of the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Climate Change.

Garanti BBVA was once again included in CDP’s global ‘A list’ for its climate change program thanks to the bank’s sustainability efforts, especially in climate change and inclusive growth. CDP’s climate change program is considered one of the world’s most important reporting platforms. Garanti BBVA has been reporting to the organization’s climate change program, and the public, since 2009, and to the CDP water program since 2015. The bank continues to be the main support of CDP in Türkiye.

Garanti BBVA is supporting a WWF Turkey program that aims to protect nature by helping to fight forest fires. The WWF Fire Management Grant Program provides local civil society groups financial and technical support to implement the projects they develop related to forest fires.

Garanti BBVA recently launched a new tool to allow customers to view their carbon footprint. The new feature on the Garanti BBVA mobile app calculates their carbon emissions based on utility and fuel expenditures, and aims to contribute to a more sustainable world, and the climate crisis.

Garanti Bank is cooperating with the Turkish Marine Environment Protection Association/TURMEPA to further its goal of working toward a sustainable world and combating the climate crisis. Both organizations are collaborating to collect waste and prevent marine pollution in the Marmara Sea and the provinces of the region as part of the “Blue Breath Project”.

Garanti BBVA Executive Vice President Ebru Dildar Edin, who attended the event to speak for the Turkish banking industry, was a member of the panel on "Financing Water Solutions and Programs Based on Innovative Science and Green Technology"

The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Ecology and Conservation Biology has gone in this fourteenth edition to the ecologists Lenore Fahrig, Simon Levin and Steward Pickett for incorporating the spatial dimension into ecosystem research.The three award winners have made fundamental contributions both to the development of the theory and mathematics of spatial ecology, and to its application to the design of nature reserve areas, wildlife management plans, as well as road networks and sustainable cities, according to the jury.

BBVA Chairman Carlos Torres Vila, met this Thursday at the bank's headquarters in Madrid with the President of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Mauricio Claver-Carone. This meeting is part of a series of working meetings that representatives of BBVA and the BBVA Microfinance Foundation will hold with members of the IDB. Sustainability was one of the issues on the agenda, in particular, support for the decarbonization of emerging countries, and especially in Latin America, as well as financial inclusion and the promotion of foreign investment in the region.

This week, the BBVA Chairman participated in the COP26 in Glasgow, where he called for concrete commitments and credible actions from everyone, public and private sector, to move toward the decarbonization of the planet. Carlos Torres Vila pointed out the need to “increase investment” in new non-polluting technologies to fight climate change. For this to happen, private capital, and specifically banks, “play a critical role” in helping and engaging with clients in their transition towards a more sustainable future with finance and advice.

In response to the devastating forest fires that have spread throughout several regions of Turkey, Garanti BBVA announced a donation of one million saplings to the TEMA Foundation, an NGO dedicated to the fight against erosion and desertification through reforestation and the protection of natural habitats.

BBVA is the first Spanish bank to join 'Every Action Counts', a coalition promoted by the Green Digital Finance Alliance (GDFA). This coalition was created with the goal of engaging, through technological and digital initiatives, 1 billion citizens around the world to drive action and environmental awareness by 2025.

The BBVA Chairman believes that 2020 has been a turning point in the drive for sustainability. He explained that climate change and decarbonisation represent not only a risk but also an enormous opportunity for both the economy and for banks. Firstly, because of the investments involved, and secondly, because of the importance of advising customers on their ecological transition. "Banks are moving fast to tackle this change head on, involving the whole organisation, because sustainability and climate change affect all businesses".

In the past five years, the social call to action to build a more sustainable world has spread at great speed, according to the BBVA Research report ‘Sustainability through the Lens of Big Data’. The study underscores that while climate change is still leading the conversation, biodiversity is emerging as the concept with the greatest growth —especially in Latin America— and it is expected to be one of the pillars that will mark the sustainability debate in the short and medium term.

In many ways, the coronavirus crisis marks a turning point in human behavior. One of the lessons this pandemic is teaching us is the essential need to change the way we interact with nature. “We will open the door to new pandemics if we continue maintaining a toxic relationship with nature,” states the ecologist Pedro Jordano. For the secretary of the jury for the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge in Ecology and Conservation Biology, biodiversity “works like a shock absorber”. If it is altered, “it leads to all kinds of problems,” like the spread of COVID-19.