Membership of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero has grown to 550 members in 50 jurisdictions, the organization said in a progress report released Thursday.
GFANZ will debut in April 2021 with 160 members, and these founding members were required to set interim targets by early November in time for the UN climate conference COP27 in Egypt.
GFANZ said in a statement Thursday that it would no longer require member states to partner with Race to Zero. Race to Zero is a UN-backed emissions reduction campaign that requires member states to agree to phase out funding for new sources of fossil fuels using science-based scenarios.
GFANZ bills itself as the world’s largest net-zero federation of financial institutions, operating through seven sector-specific partnerships.
The Alliances are the $68 Trillion Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative, the $11 Trillion Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance, the $70 Trillion Net Zero Banking Alliance, the Net Zero Financial Service Providers Alliance and the Net Zero Insurance Alliance. The report puts $700 billion, Net Zero Investment Consultants Initiative, and Paris Affiliated Asset Owners at $3.3 trillion.
As of October, more than 250 science-based targets have been set by member companies, the report said.
This year, GFANZ added regional networks in Africa and Asia-Pacific to support the development and broader vision of finance along net-zero around the world. In addition to developing tools, data and voluntary guidance to help financial institutions turn their net-zero goals into action, we aim to mobilize capital in emerging and developing economies.
According to the report, one of the biggest challenges for financial institutions trying to act on their commitments is data availability and quality, and GFANZ is working with the Climate Data Steering Committee to develop a net-zero data public utility. It is in development and a pilot is planned. It will be implemented next fall. Once fully operational, the utility will need to produce publicly available and verifiable climate transition-related data, including funded emissions, targets, and performance against targets, according to the report.
While the past two years have largely focused on commitments and how to implement them, “2023 will be the year of action,” says the GFANZ report.
