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ESG risk management and governance (Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance)
CaixaBank manages its business, products and services within the framework of its commitment to respect people and local communities. It coherently supports the most environmentally friendly initiatives and projects that contribute to prevent, mitigate and respond to climate change.
One of CaixaBank's objectives is to apply and integrate its procedures and tools for identifying, assessing, and following up on the climate and environmental risks derived from its activity with customers and transactions to be applied and integrated in its standard risk, compliance and operations processes.
The company has a specialised team for climate and environmental risk management which includes the following courses of action:
- Define and manage an internal climate and environmental risk management plan in accordance with the Group's strategy.
- Define and manage the implementation of a framework of sectorial concessions and management policies to allow us to maintain a risk profile in line with said strategy.
- Monitor actions and operations with a significant potential impact on climate and environmental risk.
- Incentivise practices to mitigate climate and environmental risks taken on as a result of its portfolios or actions across the board.
- Promote the development of systems to identify and measure its exposure to climate and environmental risk, in accordance with the regulatory framework, social awareness of these risks and the best market practices.
Additionally, there are specialized personnel dedicated to managing sustainability risks along the 3 Lines of Defense, including the Business, Risk, Non-Financial Risk and Audit functions.
Sustainability Committee
The Sustainability Committee is the highest executive body specialised in managing sustainability risk. It directly reports to the Management Committee and, when applicable to sustainability risk policies, to the Global Risk Committee, which refers the required aspects to the Risk Committee.
Sustainability Division
The Sustainability Directorate is responsible for defining the guiding principles for managing ESG risks and providing advice.
ESG (Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance) and climate-related risk management procedures
Operating principles of the Corporate Policy for managing sustainability/ESG risks
At CaixaBank, we have laid down a global framework for managing sustainability/ESG risks, which is one of the core lines of action of our strategy for managing this type of risk.
The Principles of Action of the Corporate Sustainability/ESG Risk Management Policy apply to the customer onboarding processes, the approval of corporate or project finance transactions and own-account investment in fixed-income securities and equities. They lay down a series of general and sector exclusions on activities that could have a material impact in this field, as well as the requirements under which CaixaBank will not assume risk.
The general exclusions are applicable to customers and financing and investment transactions in fixed income and equities in any sector and essentially refer to the non-violation of human rights. Sector exclusions apply to sectors with greater potential exposure to sustainability risks:
- Energy
- Mining
- Transport and infrastructure
- Agriculture, fishing, livestock and forestry
- Defence and security
The analysis of ESG risks forms part of the customer onboarding process (ESG onboarding) and the financing acceptance process; for all customers and transactions within the scope of the Policy.
As part of the analysis, consideration is given to environmental, social and governance risk, including aspects related to the company's ESG control framework and the existence or otherwise of ESG issues, decarbonisation strategy, as well as compliance with the Equator Principles, if applicable. In other words, a holistic due diligence analysis of customers from an ESG perspective.
As a result of the assessment of ESG risks, CaixaBank may approve a determining sanction for the customer's onboarding (ESG onboarding) and to grant financing transactions to customers or project financing (Environmental Risk Report).
To ensure the proper execution of these processes, we have operational procedures and guides that are updated annually. Also, we have centralised teams of specialised full-time analysts who carry out evaluation processes from a sustainability perspective. These ESG risk assessments are integrated into our customer onboarding process (ESG Onboarding Analysis) and the process of admitting financing operations (ESG Onboarding Analysis and Environmental Risk Reports). Additionally, we have other specialised teams dedicated to managing sustainability risks, including Business, Risk, Compliance and Control, and Audit.
Access to Operating principles of the Corporate Policy for managing sustainability/ESG risks
CaixaBank approved a circuit for intra-CaixaBank Group coordination in relation to serious ESG controversies linked to companies with which the Group has or seeks to have a position and which could potentially involve a violation of the Corporate Sustainability Risk Management Policy or other policies. To this end, a delegated Working Group of the Sustainability Committee has been set up to analyse and give an opinion on the seriousness of the potential violation. Alerts on potential controversies may come from external or internal sources.
Project financing: Equator Principles
Climate and Environmental Risk Management
At CaixaBank, we actively manage environmental and climate change-associated risks. Based on the assessment of the materiality of ESG risks in their interrelationship with the risk catalogue, we have prioritised climate risks in the phased deployment of ESG risk management.
In accordance with the best sectorial, supervisory and regulatory practices, we are making progress in our management and analysis of environmental risks and risks derived from climate change, which are classified as physical risks and transitional risks.
At CaixaBank, ESG risk (sustainability) is considered a transversal factor with an impact on several risks in the Catalogue (Credit, Operational, Business Profitability, and Reputational). Liquidity and market risks are not specifically mentioned given the low level of materiality applicable to them. However, it has been assessed that the stress tests conducted are of sufficient magnitude to include impacts in these areas of climatic origin.
Management of the credit portfolio seeks to align the indirect impact on climate change with risk appetite and with the commitment to its sustainability objectives. To this end:
- Since 2020, we have been conducting qualitative scenario analyses for climate risks in the form of heat maps.
- Since 2023, we have had a quantitative framework in place for measuring climate risks. This framework enables forecasting and to monitor the impacts of climate risk over credit risk, with the aim of reinforcing the comprehensive process of assessing climate risks.
In 2025, we issued our seventh green bond for €1.00 billion. In total, we have issued green bonds amounting to €8.15 billion since their launch in 2020. The green eligible asset portfolio falls under SDGs 6, 7, 9, 11 and 12.
Furthermore, CaixaBank has been a signatory to the Green Bond Principles since 2015, established by the International Capital Markets Association (ICMA). Since then, we have participated in the placement of green bonds for projects with a positive climate impact.
Net zero emissions
At CaixaBank, we have committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2050, while also setting intermediate decarbonisation targets for 2030. This initiative reflects our determination to actively contribute to the fight against climate change, in line with the global goal of limiting the average temperature increase of the planet to 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels, as established by the Paris Agreement.
In this regard, in 2025 we approved The Prudential Transition Plan constitutes a central tool for managing climate risks, enabling better management of these risks and ensuring compliance with regulatory and supervisory requirements, in particular those set out in the European Banking Authority (EBA) Guide on the management of environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks.
The Plan is established as a strategic document of the Group, which sets out in a structured manner how CaixaBank identifies, assesses, manages and monitors material risks arising from ESG factors, integrating them transversally into its overall risk management framework, ensuring consistency between the Group’s ESG strategy and objectives, its business model, corporate strategy, and risk appetite, in the short, medium and long term.
It also promotes the effective integration of ESG risks into financial planning and capital management, thus ensuring that these factors are structurally considered in decision-making.
As steps prior to setting objectives, the following milestones were reached:
- Adherence to the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials (PCAF). PCAF is a global partnership of financial institutions whose goal is to establish an international standard for measuring and disseminating financed greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
- Calculation of emissions financed (Scope 3, category 15 of the GHG Protocol). Progress has been made in estimating the financed emissions based on the PCAF methodology for mortgage portfolio assets, debt securities, equity instruments and corporate loans and advances.
- Assessment of the materiality of ESG risks, geared towards the transitional climate risks of the most potentially affected sectors on the basis of detailed heatmaps. This analysis, together with the emissions calculation and sector breakdown, helped to determine the sector portfolios to be prioritized.
We have set intermediate decarbonisation targets for 2030 for our financing and investment portfolios, specifically in the sectors with the highest intensity of greenhouse gas emissions electric, oil and gas, automotive, iron and steel, agriculture, real estate (residential and commercial), aviation and shipping. No decarbonisation targets have been established for the aluminum and cement sectors because they are not considered materials in the financing portfolio.
Additionally, we will stop financing companies involved in thermal coal activities (those clients whose revenues from thermal coal mining and/or coal-fired power generation exceed 5% of the total), reducing our exposure to zero by 2030 (phase-out).
