# Barclays PLC
## Principles for Responsible Banking (PRB)

# Reporting and self-assessment

Barclays was one of 30 founding members of the Principles for Responsible Banking (PRB), launched by the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) in September 2019. The PRB helps to align banks with society’s goals as expressed in the Paris Climate Agreement and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Our responses to certain sections within the PRB reporting and self-assessment template have been subject to KPMG Independent Limited Assurance, in accordance with PRB guidelines. This includes our ‘high-level summary of the bank’s response’ to criteria 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 5.3 and 6.1 which have been marked with the symbol A.

In addition to this, 2022 data has been reproduced from the Barclays PLC Annual Report where selected ESG metrics (marked with the symbol Δ) were subject to KPMG Independent Limited Assurance under ISAE(UK)3000 and ISAE3410.

Please refer to the ESG Resource Hub for further details: [home.barclays/sustainability/esg-resource-hub/reporting-and-disclosures/](https://home.barclays/sustainability/esg-resource-hub/reporting-and-disclosures/)

- Please refer to the PRB KPMG assurance opinion on our ESG Resource Hub [home.barclays/agm](https://home.barclays/agm)
- Please refer to the ESG KPMG assurance opinion on our ESG Resource Hub [home.barclays/agm](https://home.barclays/agm)

# Principle 1: Alignment
We will align our business strategy to be consistent with and contribute to individuals’ needs and society’s goals, as expressed in the Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Climate Agreement and relevant national and regional frameworks.

## 1.1 Describe (high-level) your bank’s business model
Barclays supports individuals and small businesses through our consumer banking services, and larger businesses and institutions through our corporate and investment banking services. Barclays is diversified by business, geography and income type.

**Barclays UK**
**UK retail and business banking**
Helping customers with their day-to-day banking needs and business services for clients from high-growth start-ups to small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

**Barclays International**
**Corporate and Investment Bank**
Aiding money managers, financial institutions, governments, supranational organisations and corporate clients to manage their funding, financing, strategic and risk management needs.

**Consumer, Cards and Payments**
Offering credit cards and retail products outside of the UK, a global private bank, and enabling businesses around the world to make and receive payments.
As part of our International Cards and Consumer Bank, in the US we have a partnership-focused business model, offering co-branded and private-label credit cards to consumers through our relationships with some of America’s well known brands. We also offer online retail deposits products, personal loans, instalment payments, and point-of-sale financing.
In Germany, we offer multiple consumer products.
Barclaycard Payments enables businesses of all sizes to make and receive payments.
Our Private Bank offers banking, credit and investment capabilities to meet the needs of our clients across the UK, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Asia.

**Barclays Execution Services**
Barclays Execution Services is the Group-wide service company providing technology, operations and functional services to businesses across the Group.

The ‘Our strategy’ section of the Barclays PLC Annual Report 2022 provides an overview of the banks’ strategic priorities, which includes our strategic priority to ‘Capture the opportunities as we transition to a low-carbon economy’.

The ‘Divisional reviews’ section of the Barclays PLC Annual Report 2022 provides an overview of each business, including a breakdown of income, operating expenses and profit before tax for Barclays UK, Barclays International: Corporate and Investment Bank and Barclays International: Consumer, Cards and Payments. The Barclays PLC Country Snapshot 2022 provides a breakdown of turnover and profit by country.

The ‘Climate risk management’ section of the Barclays PLC Annual Report 2022 provides a breakdown of carbon-related assets and our view of elevated risk sectors, in relation to climate change.

**References**
Barclays PLC Annual Report 2022:
- ‘Group overview’ on page 02
- ‘Our strategy’ on pages 12 – 15
- ‘Divisional reviews’ on pages 48 – 55
- ‘Climate risk management’ on pages 282 – 289

## 1.2 Describe how your bank has aligned and/or is planning to align its strategy (continued)

**How our sustainable financing supports the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)**
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015, provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future. At its heart are the 17 SDGs, which are an urgent call for action by all countries – developed and developing – in a global partnership. Barclays is pleased to play its part, working in partnership with our stakeholders to support the delivery of the SDGs.

Since 2018, we have tracked and reported our annual contribution to the SDGs, through our financing activities. An illustrative breakdown of our social and environmental financing is provided on page 102 of the Barclays PLC Annual Report 2022.

Barclays is helping to provide the green and sustainable finance required to transform the economies we serve. Our financing covers a range of financing activities including debt and equity capital markets, corporate lending, trade finance and consumer lending. It helps to generate positive social and environmental impact through financing of activities such as, but not limited to, energy efficiency, renewable energy, affordable housing, basic infrastructure and services. Financing of activities set out in the Barclays Sustainable Finance Framework (SFF) in turn supports progress towards achieving the SDGs.

Beyond our financing activities, our community programmes contribute to Goal 8 – decent work and economic growth.

**Nature-related financing**
While the market is at a relatively early stage, nature-related financing presents significant future opportunities for the financial sector given the capital requirements to address and reverse nature loss: the biodiversity financing gap is estimated to be in the region of $598-824bn per year$^{[1]}$.

At Barclays, we will continue to work towards green and sustainable finance targets which include financing relevant to nature and biodiversity. This includes categories such as ‘sustainable food, agriculture, forestry, aquaculture and fisheries’ in addition to financing that tracks against Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14, Life Under Water, as well as SDG 15, Life on Land.

**Reducing our financed emissions**
We aim to work closely with our clients to ensure that over time the activities we finance lead to lower financed emissions for the bank. Consistent with our Purpose and taking into account considerations of all relevant business factors, we will achieve this by continuing to set emission reduction targets for our portfolios where possible, aligned with the ambitions of the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, of which we are a founding member. We will also continue to set and follow clear restrictions on financing certain energy activities.

We have assessed our financed emissions for six sectors, including two new sectors that have been assessed for the first time in 2022: Automotive Manufacturing and Residential Real Estate.

**Digital accessibility**
We aim to ensure that our digital services are easy to see, hear, understand and use for all customers, including those with disabilities. Collectively we seek to deliver digital services and workplace tools that promote disability inclusion and meet accessibility requirements set out in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 AA level.

**Just transition**
We are playing our part to translate the concept of a just transition into tangible actions for the industry, by continuing our engagement with Financing a Just Transition Alliance (FJTA) and other key initiatives. As part of our engagement with the FJTA, we are participating in the development of the 'Making Transition Plans Just' report that provides non-binding guidance to financial institutions on how they can integrate the social dimension of climate action in their net zero transition plans.

**Basic current account**
Since 2015 we have been offering our basic current account to individuals who may not be eligible for a standard account access to banking, including over the counter services, access to ATMs, and digital banking and free text alerts to manage finances. There were over 660,000 Barclays basic current accounts open at the end of 2022.

**Our climate strategy**
Our climate strategy is driven by consideration of relevant risks and opportunities and our Purpose to deploy finance responsibly to support people and businesses, acting with empathy and integrity, championing innovation and sustainability for the common good and the long term. In March 2020, Barclays announced its ambition to be a net zero bank by 2050.

**References**
- Barclays PLC Annual Report 2022 (various sections)
- Barclays ESG Resource Hub: Our approach to sustainable finance, Barclays’ Sustainable Finance Framework

$^1$ Paulson Institute, Financing Nature: Closing the Global Biodiversity Financing Gap (2020)

# Principle 2: Impact and Target Setting
We will continuously increase our positive impacts while reducing the negative impacts on, and managing the risks to, people and environment resulting from our activities, products and services. To this end, we will set and publish targets where we can have the most significant impacts.

## 2.1 Impact Analysis
In 2022, we conducted an impact analysis using the updated v3 of the UNEP FI Portfolio Impact Analysis Tool for Banks. This analysis covered our UK retail mortgage book as well as the investment portfolios from our Barclays Europe entity, where NACE code mapping was available. The total value of available data used within our analysis represented just over 14% of Barclays total balance sheet for December 2021.

Based on our 2022 impact analysis, the first significant impact area continues to be ‘Climate stability’. The second significant impact area identified is ‘Availability, accessibility, affordability, quality of resources & service’.

**Opportunities associated with our significant impact areas**
During 2022 Barclays completed a review and assessment of the global market opportunity for sustainable financing, identifying three thematic areas:
- Energy Transition Finance: renewables and nascent/early-stage climate technologies.
- Sustainable Finance Instruments: social, sustainability-linked and transition bonds/loans.
- Retail and Business Banking: green mortgages, electric vehicle loans and SME lending.

## 2.2 Target Setting
Barclays has set SMART targets in line with some of our significant impact areas to drive alignment with and contribution to the relevant SDGs and the goals of the Paris Agreement.

**Financed emissions metrics**

| Sector | Sector boundaries | Emissions scope | GHG included | Reference scenario | Target metric | Unit of measurement | Baseline year | Target vs. baseline |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Energy | Upstream Energy | 1, 2 & 3 | CO$_2$ and methane | IEA SDS/NZE2050 | Absolute emissions | MtCO$_2$e | 2020 | -15% by 2025; -40% by 2030 |
| Power | Power generators | 1 | CO$_2$ | IEA NZE2050 | Physical intensity | kgCO$_2$e/MWh | 2020 | -30% by 2025; -50% to -69% by 2030 |
| Cement | Cement manufacturers | 1 & 2 | All GHGs | IEA NZE2050 | Physical intensity | tCO$_2$e/t | 2021 | -20% to -26% by 2030 |
| Steel | Steel manufacturers | 1 & 2 | All GHGs | IEA NZE2050 | Physical intensity | tCO$_2$e/t | 2021 | -20% to -40% by 2030 |
| Automotive manufacturing | Light Duty Vehicles manufacturers | 1, 2 & 3 | All GHGs for Scope 1 and 2; CO$_2$ for Scope 3 | IEA NZE2050 | Physical intensity | gCO$_2$e/km | 2022 | -40% to -64% by 2030 |
| Residential real estate | UK buy-to-let and owner occupied mortgages | 1 & 2 | CO$_2$, methane and nitrous oxide | CCC BNZ | Physical intensity | kgCO$_2$e/m$^2$ | 2022 | -40% by 2030 |

**$1 trillion sustainable and transition finance**
In December 2022 we announced a new target to facilitate $1trn of Sustainable and Transition Financing between 2023 and the end of 2030. This encompasses the green, social, transition and broader sustainability-linked financing requirements of clients including corporates, governments and consumers.

## 2.3 Plans for Target Implementation and Monitoring
We disclose our performance against our targets in the Barclays PLC Annual Report 2022. We use the Barclays Sustainable Finance Framework (SFF) for sustainable financing and the BlueTrack™ methodology to measure and track our financed emissions at a portfolio level.

## 2.4 Progress on Implementing Targets
- **Energy:** In 2022 we reduced our absolute financed emissions by a cumulative 32% against a 2020 baseline.
- **Power:** In 2022 we achieved a 9% cumulative reduction in emission intensity, against a 2020 baseline.
- **Cement:** Reduced intensity by 2% against 2021.
- **Steel:** Reduced intensity by 11% against 2021.
- **Sustainable finance:** We facilitated £25.5bn of green financing in 2022. Since 2018, we have facilitated a total of £87.8bn.

# Principle 3: Clients and Customers
We will work responsibly with our clients and our customers to encourage sustainable practices and enable economic activities that create shared prosperity for current and future generations.

In our Climate Strategy, Targets and Progress document published in March 2022 we noted our intention to develop a Client Transition Framework (CTF). The CTF will support our evaluation of our corporate clients' current and expected future progress as they transition to a low-carbon business model.

We also continue to support our retail customers through data analytics to identify financial vulnerability and ensure colleagues have the financial health tools to support them.

# Principle 4: Stakeholders
We will proactively and responsibly consult, engage and partner with relevant stakeholders to achieve society’s goals.

Barclays aims to create sustainable value for all those we serve. We think about our core stakeholders as belonging to four groups: customers and clients, colleagues, society, and investors. We perform a materiality assessment annually to understand and address material ESG issues.

# Principle 5: Governance & Culture
We will implement our commitment to these PRBs through effective governance and a culture of responsible banking.

Barclays’ governance structure consists of the Board, Board Committees, executive and management committees. Climate risk was elevated to a Principal Risk within our Enterprise Risk Management Framework (ERMF) from 1 January 2022. The Board and its Committees, including the Board Risk Committee (BRC), provide oversight of social and environmental matters.

# Principle 6: Transparency & Accountability
We will periodically review our individual and collective implementation of these PRB and be transparent about and accountable for our positive and negative impacts and our contribution to society’s goals.

The Barclays Annual Report suite and additional ESG disclosures on our ESG Resource Hub provide an update on 2022 activities. Our ESG disclosures are made with reference to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standards and the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) framework. In 2022 our climate-related disclosures are included in our Annual Report.

# Disclaimer
This document contains forward-looking statements. Barclays cautions readers that no forward-looking statement is a guarantee of future performance. Forward-looking statements can be identified by words such as ‘may’, ‘will’, ‘seek’, ‘continue’, ‘aim’, ‘anticipate’, ‘target’, ‘projected’, ‘expect’, ‘estimate’, ‘intend’, ‘plan’, ‘goal’, ‘believe’, or ‘achieve’. Actual results may differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements due to various risks and uncertainties. Subject to legal obligations, we undertake no obligation to update publicly or revise any forward-looking statements.