ING is sustainability ‘leader’, says Sustainalytics
ING remains a sustainability ‘leader’, ranking ninth out of 336 listed and non-listed global banks, according to Sustainalytics.
ING scored an 84 as of March 2019, one point lower than our previous rating, putting us in the 98th percentile in the banks industry group and first in our market capitalisation peer group. Sustainalytics is a global provider of environmental, social and governance (ESG) research and ratings.
ING’s ‘leader’ status applies to our environmental and social performance, with the governance category falling in the ‘outperformer’ assessment tier.
This high score is an acknowledgement of ING’s strong ESG policies and improved transparency. Over the past year, we strengthened our climate change governance and risk management approach, as well as our disclosures to align with the recommendations of the Financial Stability Board’s Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).
We also announced our ambition to align our loan book with the well-below two-degree goal of the Paris Agreement with a strategy we call the Terra approach. Our Responsible Finance lending portfolio and other sustainable finance instruments, like our sustainability improvement loan, now work in synergy with risk policies like our ’near zero’ coal finance ambition to capture the opportunities and manage the risks of climate change.
At the same time, we recognise that our governance score decreased, reflecting the settlement agreement with the Dutch authorities that ING announced in September 2018.
