Nordea makes strong progress towards 2030 climate target with 44% reduction of financed emissions in lending portfolio
Nordea continues to make progress in delivering on our climate commitments and supporting our customers with their transitions. With a 44% reduction in financed emissions across the lending portfolio and EUR 235bn facilitated sustainable financing, we have exceeded our target for 2025 and are on track to meet our 2030 targets.
With 2025 behind us, we can now track progress against the short-term and long-term targets we set in 2021. During this period, we have worked closely with our customers to understand their climate ambitions and supported them in financing their transition plans. Recognising that customers are at different stages of transition, we have adapted our offering and developed solutions that address the growing demand for transition finance.
Higher uptake of our sustainability offering
The combination of focused customer engagement and a broader sustainable finance offering has delivered positive results. By the end of 2025, we had reduced financed emissions in our lending portfolio by 44% compared to 2019 levels, putting us well on track to meet our 2030 reduction target of 40-50%.
Higher uptake of our sustainability offering is an important part of the progress. This includes lending products, such as green loans and sustainability-linked loans, and helping customers gain access to capital market financing, for example via green, social, sustainable and sustainability-linked bonds. Nordea is a leading sustainable issuer in Europe, with more than EUR 17bn in sustainable bonds outstanding across six different currencies.
Our strategic direction is clear. We stand by our long-term objective to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 at the latest and are decarbonising our portfolios and reducing our exposure to fossil fuels faster than the pace prescribed by scientific scenarios limiting global warming to 1.5°C.
Since 2022, we have facilitated more than EUR 235bn in sustainable financing, exceeding our 2025 target. Green and sustainability-linked assets now account for 15% of total assets, almost double the level in 2022, which demonstrates our continued commitment to finance the transition.
While our main focus remains on engagement and financing the transition, we have also reduced our exposure to fossil fuels and the oil and gas sector to reduce the risks and indirect negative impacts from our operations. We maintain a risk-based and restrictive approach to oil and gas extraction and have significantly reduced our lending exposure in recent years – it now accounts for only 0.001% of total lending.
Regarding Nordea’s own operations, we have also made continued good progress. Since 2019, we have reduced carbon emissions from our internal operations by more than 50%, which means we have by far achieved our 2025 target and are in a very good place to deliver on our 2030 target.
ESG factors well-integrated in our investments
Climate change mitigation and other ESG factors are also well integrated into our investment strategies. We support the transition through active ownership and engagement with the companies where our funds are invested. Our Responsible Investment team at Nordea Asset Management carries out most of this work, actively engaging with investee companies and asset managers around the world to make an impact.
An example of our engagement activities is our participation in the Oil and Gas Methane Partnership 2.0 framework. Here we encourage companies across the oil and gas industry to measure, disclose and mitigate their methane emissions. Due to our dialogues, 15 companies have joined.
2025 climate targets
Status | |
| Nordea Bank: Ensure that 90% of our exposure to large corporate customers in climate-vulnerable sectors is covered by transition plans by the end of 2025 | Target met: 91% |
| Nordea Asset Management: Ensure that 80% of the top 200 emissions contributors in Nordea Asset Management’s portfolios are either aligned with the Paris Agreement or are subject to active engagement to become aligned by the end of 2025 | Target met: 93% |
| Nordea Asset Management: Double the share of net-zero-committed assets under management by the end of 2025 compared with 2021 | Target met: 38.8% |
| Operations and supply chain: Reduce the carbon emissions from our internal operations by 40% by the end of 2025 compared with 2019 | Target met: 52% |
| Operations and supply chain: Ensure that suppliers covering 80% of our related spending are either aligned with the Paris Agreement or are subject to active engagement to become aligned by the end of 2025 | Target met: 81% |
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