The importance of being transparent : a review of climate-related and environmental risks disclosures practices and trends : results of the 2022 supervisory assessment of institutions' climate-related and environmental risks disclosures

As part of the supervisory work on the transparency of banks' risk profiles, the European Central Bank (ECB) is publishing its third review of the disclosure of climate-related and environmental (C&E) risks among significant institutions (SIs) and a selected number of less significant institutions (LSIs). The assessment of C&E risk management and disclosures was highlighted as one of the supervisory priorities for 2023-25 and is based on the expectations set out by the ECB in its Guide on climate-related and environmental risks (the Guide), which was published in November 2020 to ensure that the banking sector discloses C&E risks effectively and comprehensively. In 2023, the SIs within the scope of application of the Commission Implementing Regulation henceforth referred to as the European Banking Authority (EBA) Implementing Technical Standards (ITS) on Pillar 3 disclosures on environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks1 will be required to disclose information as per the Annexes of the ITS, with reference date 31st of December 2022. The assessment covered the existence, substantiation and soundness of disclosures across key areas of the expectations, including materiality assessment, business model and strategy, governance, risk management, and metrics and targets, as per the ECB Guide expectation 13. The review was conducted by the ECB and national competent authorities (NCAs) and covered 103 SIs and 28 LSIs. In addition, the disclosures of 12 global systematically important banks (G-SIBs) established outside the European Union (EU) were benchmarked against the disclosures of the EU banks within the scope of the assessment. This report describes the main findings of the review for all these institutions. The outcome of this exercise shows that the majority of SIs now disclose at least basic information for most of the expectations. Most banks have now improved their public disclosures to address C&E risks, having clearly built up their capabilities in 2022. Most banks disclose basic information on materiality assessments and governance, and more than half of the banks disclose basic information on business strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets. However, banks still need to close remaining gaps to disclose all relevant C&E risk information as only 34% of the banks disclose information on all categories.