Wiebe Draijer is Vice-President of the EACB and Chairman of the Rabobank Managing Board. From 1990 to 2003, he was employed as a consultant at the McKinsey consultancy firm. In 2004, he was appointed the company's managing partner for The Netherlands and in 2006 for the Benelux countries. As from 1 September 2012, Wiebe Draijer was appointed president of the Social and Economic Council of The Netherlands. He is also Member of the Board of the Dutch Banking Association,Member Supervisory Board Kröller Müller Museum and Member of the Supervisory Board of Staatsbosbeheer (State Forest).
| Dear Mr. Draijer, as the Vice-President of the EACB and Chairman of the Managing Board of Rabobank, what do you think about the Paris agreements and sustainable development goals? How is Rabobank contributing? |
|
|
The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and many other associated policy measures urge accelerated climate action by all actors in the global economy, including businesses and financial institutions. We fully support these initiatives and believe that reducing greenhouse gas emissions by transitioning to a low-carbon and climate-resilient economy is critical to limiting global warming and building a sustainable economic system.
The Paris Climate Agreement sets collective objectives for 2030 and 2050 but leaves it to individual countries to determines their own approaches to achieving these objectives. In the Netherlands, this is being done through the creation of a national Climate Agreement. Rabobank is integrally involved in the development of the agreement, providing expert input in the areas of sustainable agriculture, real estate, and financing the energy transition. The Dutch Climate Agreement will be anchored in Dutch Law by means of the Climate Act, which is currently being debated in the Dutch parliament.
We are very conscious that our clients and members will be faced with the need to implement CO2 reduction measures in the coming years. It’s our duty to help facilitate these transitions to a low carbon economy. Next to our activities in the Netherlands, we are also looking at how we can incorporate these changes into our international food and agricultural strategy in the 40 other countries where we operate. For example, we are looking at the impact of climate (and climate considerations) on international trade finance and project financing. In order to be able to prioritize all the different initiatives, we are running climate impact analyses along with other scenario analyses and stress tests.
|
|
| What are your views on the European sustainable action plan? |
|
In March 2018, the European Commission published its Action Plan on Financing Sustainable Growth. A comprehensive European strategy to further connect finance with sustainability is in the interest of all our members and clients. We are therefore proud and honoured to deliver the current chair of the EACB Green & Sustainable Finance Working Group. We consider the work coordinated by EACB on the EU Action Plan on sustainable finance very important and we are glad to collaborate with the other EACB members. Sustainability is traditionally a common feature of co-operative banks.
The European Commission has established a technical expert group on sustainable finance to develop key parts of the Action Plan. The expert group will provide input in four key areas:
- The creation of a unified classification system for sustainable economic activities;
- The establishment of an EU Green Bond standard;
- Setting benchmarks for low-carbon investment strategies; and
- Providing guidance to improve corporate disclosure of climate-related information.
These are all important steps towards a more coordinated approach. Consider the importance of improving corporate disclosure of climate-related information, for example. We see more and more methods and standards becoming available for providing insight into the climate footprint of balance sheets, and the climate-related risks to which bank customers are exposed. Climate risks, such as drought, excessive rainfall, fires or crop failures can result in considerable losses for our customers. But new and tighter environmental regulations can also pose high costs, even to the extent that it may no longer be feasible for some companies to continue operating. Obviously these types of risk have an impact on the relationship between a bank and its clients. Therefore, financial institutions and companies have a shared interest in being able to accurately and transparently measure climate risks and carbon footprints. In the coming years, we expect that banks, pension funds and insurers will report more on the climate footprint and about the climate risks of their exposures. That is why we believe that uniform standards, preferably set at EU level, are so important. |
|
|
|
| What kind of products and services does Rabobank develop to make the economy more sustainable? |
|
Rabobank has the largest residential mortgage portfolio in the Netherlands. To help our clients make their homes “future proof” we have developed a ‘Green Mortgage’ and a ‘Green Building Deposit Account’. The latter is a product which gives clients a two-year line of credit to invest in energy-saving measures for their home. Any credit that they haven’t used after two years simply expires at no extra cost. We have also entered into a partnership with Green Home to offer our clients a Home Scan, which helps them identify measures to make their homes more sustainable.
In the food and agricultural sector, together with UN Environment and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Rabobank launched the AGRI3Fund to help farmers invest in climate smart agriculture practices such as integrated crop, livestock and forestry systems to mitigate climate change and enrich biodiversity.
In our home market of the Netherlands, where we bank 85% of the food and agricultural sector, we are developing tools that will allow us to reward clients that show superior sustainability performance with more favorable credit terms. For example, the recently launched Biodiversity Monitor, which we developed together with the World Wildlife Fund and Campina, measures biodiversity on dairy farms. We are now piloting a program where Rabobank is giving an interest rate discount to the 25% best-scoring farms in terms of biodiversity.
Finally, in the energy sector, Rabobank is the largest provider of financing for wind energy in Europe and in the top ten worldwide. In the coming years we will continue to build out our position in renewable energy. |
|
|
|
