Climate Safe Lending Fellowship

Return on Investment for Participating Institutions

Across the globe banks and financial regulators are recognising that climate change presents significant risks to financial stability and growth, and also offers tremendous strategic opportunities for those institutions who capitalise on financing a just transition to a low carbon economy.

Many banks are announcing net zero targets, but achieving these requires fundamental changes in core strategy, operations and culture. No bank has undertaken this transformation before so the way forward remains complex and uncertain. Read more about our theme for the 2022/2023 Fellowship, “Credibility in the Climate Transition”.

The Climate Safe Lending Fellowship welcomes representatives of banks who are seeking to close the gap between business as usual and climate goals. Through participation in this six-month community of practice, Fellows will bring to their banks:

• Best practice insights: Fellows will bring into their bank market intelligence on successful climate finance strategies that have been proven in peer institutions. This will de-risk their bank's climate approach and open up competitive advantages becoming a market leader.

• Stakeholder network: Banks will gain access to a network of influential bank stakeholders they can leverage to develop and deliver climate strategies. The CSL Fellowship is a programme of the Climate Safe Lending Network and the Finance Innovation Lab. Fellows and their banks are welcomed as members of the Network to participate in knowledge exchanges, working groups and collaborations alongside other senior leaders and changemakers within banks, investment firms, NGOs, financial regulators and government, businesses and academia.

• Organisational transformation: The programme focuses on more than just the technical components of climate finance alone. Fellows will also gain skills and insights to support their bank's organisational transformation, capability-building and culture change for the climate transition.

• Effective leaders: The Fellowship will enhance the motivation, commitment and effectiveness of bank employees, equipping them with the knowledge, networks and leadership skills to accelerate their bank's progress toward net zero.

Fellowship activities are designed to take place alongside Fellows’ day job, with an average time commitment of one day a month over six months. Fellows will be supported to apply their learning directly in their organisation.

Explore what past Fellows say about the Fellowship, and the impact they created here.

Applying to the Fellowship

To amplify the value of these benefits to banking institutions, we recommend sponsoring up to three employees to participate in the Climate Safe Lending Fellowship from the following areas:

• Sustainability / ESG - someone responsible for developing and implementing climate strategies within the bank.

• Commercial business units - someone in a core business function or business unit which now needs to integrate a climate lens into its strategy and decision making e.g. corporate lending, project finance, credit risk, relationship/portfolio management.

• Internal operations - someone in the back office who is responsible for ensuring a climate lens is integrated into business processes and culture e.g. transformation, change management, human resources or learning and development.

Organisations can benefit from a group discount of 10% for two places, and 20% for three places. Each applicant will be assessed individually before being granted a place on the programme.