Climate change: DBS pledges ‘ambitious’ cut in financed emissions from steel despite heavy exposure to China, India

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Uploaded: 2022-09-13T11:01:54.000Z
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The Singaporean bank hopes to reduce financed emissions from steel – those caused by steelmakers financed by the bank – by 27 per cent by 2030

Steel manufacturing is one of the world’s leading causes of harmful emissions of greenhouse gases

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Steel manufacturing accounts for between 7 and 9 per cent of all human-caused greenhouse gases globally, according to the World Steel Association. Photo: Getty Images

Connor Mycroft

Published: 7:01pm, 13 Sep 2022Updated: 3:26pm, 14 Sep 2022

DBS, Southeast Asia’s largest bank, is pursuing an “ambitious” plan to reduce financed emissions from steel production as it races to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

The pledge is likely to prove challenging, as the lender is heavily exposed to the industry-dominant markets of China and India.

“We are taking a leap of faith,” said Yulanda Chung, head of sustainability, institutional banking group, DBS, at a news conference announcing the measures on Tuesday. “Many of our steel mill customers are in China and India [which are] higher emitting regions. As a result, we are really trying our best to have an ambitious target.”

The Singapore-based bank hopes to reduce its financed emissions from steel – those caused by steelmakers financed by the bank – by around 27 per cent of 2020 levels by 2030, from 1.95kgCO2 to 1.42kgCO2 per kilogram of manufactured steel. It then hopes to drastically scale down to just 0.14kgCO2 by 2050.

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KgCO2 is a unit that quantifies the amount of carbon dioxide that would have the same global warming potential as a given amount of greenhouse gas.

Steel manufacturing is one of the world’s leading causes of harmful emissions, accounting for between 7 and 9 per cent of all human-caused greenhouse gases globally, according to the World Steel Association.