15/05/2025
The Church of England Pensions Board on Thursday 15 May 2025 attended and spoke as a shareholder at the AGM of Lloyds Bank in Edinburgh.
At the AGM, the Pensions Board called on Lloyds to fully exit investments in businesses pursuing oil and gas expansion.
The engagement with the company continues the Pensions Board’s recent efforts to support financial institutions in their transition to net zero. This includes supporting statements from Share Action that called for firms, including Barclays and Standard Chartered, to set clear targets for their clean energy transition plans.
"Leadership on net zero has never been more crucial than it is today," said Sara Taffe, Responsible Investment Analyst for the Environment at the Church of England Pensions Board. "2024 marked the hottest year on record, significantly increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. We can look to recent events in Valencia and Los Angeles as examples of this. Banks, and bankers, have an incredibly important role in catalysing the transition to net zero through supporting the financing of the industries they want future generations to inherit.”
The full statement from the AGM was as follows:
As a shareholder, we would like to acknowledge the leadership that Lloyds Bank has demonstrated in the banking sector over recent years. We were particularly encouraged by the banks:
ambition to fully exit from all entities operating thermal coal facilities by 2030 and
leadership as the first UK bank to make a commitment not to provide direct finance to new oil and gas projects.
Indeed, analysis from the 2024 Banking on Climate Chaos report shows an encouraging trajectory that Lloyds' direct financing towards fossil fuel companies has decreased from 36 clients with just shy of $3.5 billion in financing in 2016, to 15 clients representing just under $1.9 billion in financing in 2023. This represents just 0.18% of fossil fuel financing as a percentage of your assets, based on 2023 data.
Leadership on net-zero has never been more crucial than it is today. The year 2024 marked the hottest year on record, significantly increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. We can look to recent events in Valencia and Los Angeles as examples of this. Banks, and bankers, have an incredibly important role in catalysing the transition to net zero through supporting the financing of the industries they want future generations to inherit.