BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole, Société Générale, and ING have set targets to reduce their lending to upstream oil and/or gas activities. These financial targets contrast with most major banks' oil and gas emission targets, which for methodological reasons do little to cut real-world emissions. While targets to reduce financial flows are a step forward, comprehensively restricting capital to oil and gas companies requires cutting not just lending exposure but also the volume of bond and equity issuances to the sector. Financial targets should cover both credit and capital markets issuances and cover midstream and downstream in addition to upstream activities.
Well-designed targets can complement bank policies that stop support for oil and gas companies involved in the most climate-incompatible activities, in particular developing new projects. While policies can quickly end finance for the worst activities, targets can commit a bank to a defined pace of phase-down for a whole sector against a measurable baseline. Most banks, however, base their oil and gas targets on flawed metrics that do little if anything to achieve real-world emission reductions. (1)
The most common bank oil and gas targets are based on financed (from lending) or facilitated (from capital markets activities) emissions. These are calculated using formulas with the perverse effect that financed/facilitated emissions drop when corporate values increase. Progress on meeting financed/facilitated emissions targets has therefore revealed more about the soaring values of fossil fuel companies after the invasion of Ukraine and attack on Iran than it has about actual emission reductions. (2)
Like most of their peers, BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole, Société Générale, and ING have set financed emissions reduction targets for the oil and gas sector. But these four banks have also adopted financial volume targets. Financial targets, if ambitious, properly structured, and transparent, could help accelerate real-world decarbonization by sending a clear signal to investors, executives and policymakers that oil and gas companies' access to capital will be increasingly restricted.
Targets should cover all finance, not just lending, and not just upstream activities
These banks' oil and gas finance targets cover their lending exposure but not their capital markets activities — mainly the bond issuances through which oil and gas companies raise much of their finance. (3) Likewise, in covering only upstream exploration and production activities, the financial targets fail to cover oil and gas companies' midstream activities such as LNG terminals and transport, and downstream activities such as refining. By contrast, the banks' financed emissions reduction and intensity targets cover upstream, midstream and downstream. (4)
BNP Paribas and Crédit Agricole announced in May 2024 that they would stop underwriting conventional bonds for companies involved in oil and gas extraction. This is notable progress — but it leaves equity issuances and midstream and downstream activities untouched.
Progress at meeting the targets
The four banks' lending targets are for 2025 and/or 2030 (see Table). The banks claim their targets align with the International Energy Agency's net zero emissions by 2050 scenario. ING also has a target to zero out its upstream oil and gas credit exposure by 2040. Crédit Agricole has failed to set any financial target after 2025.
| Bank | Segment covered | 2025 target (baseline) | Progress at meeting 2025 target | 2030 target (baseline) | Progress at meeting 2030 target |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BNP Paribas | Upstream oil and gas | -12% (2020) | 2020 exposure not disclosed; target presumably exceeded | None set | — |
| BNP Paribas | Upstream oil | -25% (2020) | 2020 exposure not disclosed; target presumably exceeded | -80% (2022) | -80% (2022 to 2025) |
| BNP Paribas | Upstream gas | None set | — | -30% (2022) | -66% (2022 to 2025) |
| Crédit Agricole | Upstream oil | -25% (2020) | Achieved (-72%) | None set | — |
| Société Générale | Upstream oil and gas | -50% (2019) | Achieved (-76%) | -80% (2019) | -76% (2019 to 2025) |
| ING | Upstream oil and gas | None set | — | -35% (2019) | -71% (2019 to 2025) |
Table: Progress at meeting lending exposure targets. Baselines and progress figures as reported by each bank in their 2026 annual/sustainability reports.
The banks report significant progress at meeting the targets. BNP Paribas set an 80% cut in upstream oil exposure by 2030 against a 2022 baseline and had already met this target by 2025, with its exposure falling from €5.0 billion to €1.0 billion. Its 30% fossil gas target has been greatly exceeded, with exposure down 66%. ING's 2030 target is a 35% cut from 2019 — it reports having already reduced its exposure by 71%. Société Générale stands at 76% against an 80% target for 2030. Crédit Agricole far exceeded its 2025 oil target.
What these banks still need to do
- Set 2030 oil and gas capital markets financing volume targets with reductions at least as ambitious as the lending targets.
- Set oil and gas lending and capital markets volume targets for upstream, midstream and downstream separately and combined. (5)
- Disclose all relevant target methodologies and parameters. (6) Reporting should include comprehensive attribution analyses showing factors behind changes in headline numbers. (7)
- Absolute financed and facilitated emissions can be disclosed to compare banks at a specific point in time, but are not an effective target-setting metric.
- Crédit Agricole must publish a 2030 replacement for its expired oil lending target and complement it with a gas target.
- Targets should be supplemented with policies to cease financing oil and gas companies that are expanding their activities.
- Fossil fuel finance targets should be complemented with targets to scale up sustainable power supply. Banks should aim for a ratio of six times more financial support to sustainable power than to fossil fuels, as suggested by the IEA's net zero emissions scenario. (8)
While these four banks need to improve their oil and gas financing targets, they are far ahead of their peers, which have yet to set any financing volume targets for the sector and mostly remain reliant on highly inadequate financed/facilitated emissions and emissions intensity targets. All banks need to set financing volume targets as outlined above.
Download individual briefings on the oil and gas targets of BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole, Société Générale and ING.
