Go Green Hub
Combating climate change & supporting your climate ambitions
Save on electric vehicle charge points I want to go paperlessOur ambition is to be a leading bank in addressing the climate challenge. We're working to make our operations climate positive by 2025 and to at least halve the climate impact of our financing activity by 2030. We're also here to support you and your climate goals, as we all make the transition to a low-carbon economy.
And we could help you save on an electric vehicle home charge point
Get a discounted rate and further £50 off on us when you purchase an electric vehicle home charge point from Octopus Energy.
Ulster Bank receives a fee from Octopus Energy for customers it introduces to them that subsequently purchase products or services from Octopus Energy, although this fee will be passed onto you as a discount.
Switching to paperless is a quick and easy way to reduce your waste. Instead, you can check your mail and statements via online banking or on your mobile app. It’s a safe and handy way to manage all your documents.
Specific mobile and online banking criteria applies.
Our current focus
Helping to end the most harmful activity
We plan to stop lending to and underwriting companies with more than 15% of activities related to coal
o We plan to stop lending to and underwriting major oil and gas producers as well as companies with more than 15% of activities related to coal, unless they have a credible transition plan in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement by the end of 2021
o We have market leading policies on reducing the most harmful activities, including prohibitions on project financing for coal power plants, thermal coal mines, oil sand or arctic oil projects. In February 2020, we announced further changes to our policy to prohibit project financing for fracking or oil and gas exploration
Accelerating the speed of transition
We plan to help customers reduce their carbon impact with products and services, delivered through cross-industry collaboration
o We plan to support our UK and Republic of Ireland mortgage customers to increase their residential energy efficiency and buy the most energy efficient homes. Our aim is to have 50% of the mortgages we provide at or above Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating C or equivalent by 2030
o We plan to help customers track their carbon impact with innovative products and services, delivered through cross-industry collaboration. In 2020 we launched a partnership with a start-up called CoGo to test their carbon footprint tracking tool. We’ll be expanding the pilot to business customers in 2021, and work toward designing a solution for all customers
Championing climate solutions
We plan to provide an additional £20bn funding and financing for climate and sustainable finance between 2020 and 2022
o We plan to provide an additional £20bn funding and financing for climate and sustainable finance between 2020 and 2022
o We reserve at least 25% of places in our Entrepreneur accelerator hubs for businesses supporting environmental activities
o We were a leading lender to the UK renewables sector by number of transactions in the past decade (2009-2019)
o We provided £9.9bn to sustainable energy funding and financing to the sustainable energy sector between 2018 and 2019
Reducing our footprint
We're setting ourselves the challenge to at least halve the climate impact of our financing activity by 2030, and intend to do what is necessary to achieve alignment with the 2015 Paris Agreement. To do this, we plan to quantify our total climate impact, including the impact of all our customers, and set sector-specific targets by 2022.
- We’re working to make our operations climate positive by 2025
- We have reduced emissions from our own operations by 61% since 2014
Working with the United Nations (UN)
We are a founding signatory of the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative’s Principles for Responsible Banking. This commits us to further aligning our strategy to the 2015 Paris Agreement and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Find out more about our strategy
Responding to climate change is the biggest challenge of past and present generations. At NatWest Group, we’re taking bold actions to drive the UK transition to a low carbon economy.
Visit the NatWest Group Climate page
