Boris Vallee, PhD, CFA’s Post

WHY MORAL PRESSURE ON BANKS WON’T STOP FOSSIL FUELS Campaigning for banks to stop financing fossil fuels may sound like a good idea, but in practice, it’s ineffective. Capital is fluid: if one bank exits, another steps in. The fossil project continues—just funded by a different source. The only tangible outcome is that the banks trying to act responsibly lose market share, while the fossil industry remains untouched. When a bank refuses to finance oil or coal for moral reasons, it simply opens space for competitors who don’t. This creates a perverse effect: the institutions that tried to adopt environmental or social criteria end up being labeled as “ideological” or “inefficient,” which fuels resistance within the financial sector itself. The solution is not to moralize credit, but to price it properly. Fossil-related lending carries growing risks that the market still underestimates. There’s regulatory risk — with carbon taxes and emission limits emerging worldwide. Technological risk — as clean energy becomes cheaper. Legal risk — with lawsuits and reparations for environmental damages. And physical risk — from climate-related disasters. All these factors make fossil credit riskier than it looks. This is not a matter of right or wrong, but of risk and return. A bank that keeps financing fossil fuels while ignoring these trends is managing capital poorly. Pressure should focus on getting the market to acknowledge and price these risks — through interest rates, collateral requirements, and credit assessments. The energy transition won’t be driven by moral appeals. It will happen because fossil assets will eventually become bad investments. The challenge is to accelerate that realization — not by punishing those trying to change, but by showing that, in the long run, financing carbon means losing money.

Cracks are appearing in the anti fossil fuel industry as reality and time exposes the fantasy of renewables and man's arrogant belief that humans can control nature and the weather (Kevin Beck) "energy systems cannot run on ideology and global coal demand continues to rise. That means the real question is not if coal will be funded, but how. In recent months, we’ve called on banks to move past “false binaries” of good versus bad energy. What matters is balance, renewables alongside responsibly stewarded fossil fuels."

Banks play an important role in the energy transition by helping companies and projects access capital. A bank’s lending and underwriting, for both low-carbon solutions and conventional fossil fuels, demonstrate its own preparedness for the transition. 💸 BloombergNEF's fourth Energy Supply Banking Ratio report assesses how much money global banks are channelling into the energy transition. The analysis shows that some 2,000 banks made little progress last year in shifting finance toward low-carbon solutions over fossil fuels. 👉 Read more and download the summary report here: https://bloom.bg/4pOA62y

Barclays’ Head of Sustainable and Transition Finance, Daniel Hanna, said the transaction with EIFO would allow the bank to bring “even more scale and confidence” to UK green hydrogen. #hydrogen #HydrogenNow #H2View

Green Bond Handbook: A Step by step Guide to Issuing a Green Bond. A Green Bond is a debt instrument in which the proceeds are committed to be used exclusively to finance or refinance eligible green projects, whether new or existing. The issuance follows the Green Bond Principles (GBPs) of ICMA, which are built around four core components: Use of Proceeds, Project Evaluation and Selection, Management of Proceeds, and Reporting. Green Bonds can take several structural forms, including Green Revenue Bonds, Green Project Bonds, Green Securitised Bonds, and most commonly, the Standard Green Use of Proceeds (UoP) Bond. A UoP Bond is a standard debt obligation with full recourse to the issuer, meaning it shares the same financial characteristics—such as seniority, maturity, credit rating, and yield—as a conventional bond from the same issuer. The main difference lies in the commitment to use the proceeds exclusively for green purposes. It is important to note that failure to comply with environmental commitments does not constitute a legal default; the issuer’s repayment obligations remain as defined in the legal documentation of the bond. All such commitments are outlined in the Green Bond Framework (GBF), a foundational document that helps investors assess the project selection process, proceeds management, and anticipated environmental impacts.

Banks play an important role in the energy transition by helping companies and projects access capital.⚡ A bank’s lending and underwriting, for both low-carbon solutions and conventional fossil fuels, demonstrate its own preparedness for the transition. 💸 BloombergNEF's fourth Energy Supply Banking Ratio report assesses how much money global banks are channelling into the energy transition. The analysis shows that some 2,000 banks made little progress last year in shifting finance toward low-carbon solutions over fossil fuels. 👉 Read more and download the summary report here: https://bloom.bg/4odac6U

🌍 𝐄𝐔 𝐆𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐃𝐞𝐛𝐭 𝐃𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞: 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐄𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐲 𝐃𝐞𝐟𝐚𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐬 𝐀𝐫𝐞 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐁𝟐𝐁 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐬 The EU’s new Green Debt Directive is reshaping how lenders and agencies assess credit risk — especially in energy-intensive industries like steel, chemicals, and logistics. As firms struggle to meet carbon reporting standards and green bond obligations, commercial defaults are rising — unlocking new, sustainability-linked debt portfolios. 𝗢𝘂𝗿 𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗧𝗮𝗹𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗗𝗲𝗯𝘁𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗹𝗼𝗿𝗲𝘀: ✔️ How “green compliance” affects corporate debt ratings ✔️ Why energy-linked defaults are redefining debt leads ✔️ What this means for debt buyers and collection agencies in 2025 🔗 Read more: https://lnkd.in/guAQgcMk #GreenDebt #EUDirective #SustainableFinance #DebtCollection #DebtAwareness #EnergySector #DebtNews #TalkinDebts #CommercialDebt #CreditRisk

Banks play an important role in the energy transition by helping companies and projects access capital.⚡ A bank’s lending and underwriting, for both low-carbon solutions and conventional fossil fuels, demonstrate its own preparedness for the transition. 💸 BloombergNEF's fourth Energy Supply Banking Ratio report assesses how much money global banks are channelling into the energy transition. The analysis shows that some 2,000 banks made little progress last year in shifting finance toward low-carbon solutions over fossil fuels. 👉 Read more and download the summary report here: https://bloom.bg/4mC2pyg

Banks play an important role in the energy transition by helping companies and projects access capital.⚡ A bank’s lending and underwriting, for both low-carbon solutions and conventional fossil fuels, demonstrate its own preparedness for the transition. 💸 BloombergNEF's fourth Energy Supply Banking Ratio report assesses how much money global banks are channelling into the energy transition. The analysis shows that some 2,000 banks made little progress last year in shifting finance toward low-carbon solutions over fossil fuels. 👉 Read more and download the summary report here: https://bloom.bg/3IT5fkL

Banks play an important role in the energy transition by helping companies and projects access capital.⚡ A bank’s lending and underwriting, for both low-carbon solutions and conventional fossil fuels, demonstrate its own preparedness for the transition. 💸 BloombergNEF's fourth Energy Supply Banking Ratio report assesses how much money global banks are channelling into the energy transition. The analysis shows that some 2,000 banks made little progress last year in shifting finance toward low-carbon solutions over fossil fuels. 👉 Read more and download the summary report here: https://bloom.bg/4pSc8Df