The financial sector is a key driver of transformation. An important element of the EU Green Deal is to redirect billions of private capital into sustainable projects, systems and investments. To do this, banks must check all financing for sustainability and evaluate it using the criteria catalog of the so-called EU taxonomy. This means a turning point in the financial market: Financing that damages the climate and the environment or violates human rights will be ended and high-impact projects will be brought forward – in a global context as well as on a small scale locally.

Banks and savings banks offer their customers sustainable financial products and make the transformative factors of their investments transparent. Ecological, social and ethical investment criteria are becoming more and more differentiated, greenwashing measures are increasingly being combated and controversial projects are being cut off from financial flows. In this way, ecological and social factors can increasingly influence investments and help finance the necessary transformations.

Sustainability-oriented start-ups of banks enable the younger generation in particular to conduct financial transactions in a more direct, impact-oriented manner, e.g. via CO2 calculations for credit card transactions. The basis is simple, transparent customer processes, responsible handling of data and the increasing formation of networked communities in the service of transformation. Especially in rural areas, the industry has the potential to connect actors and promote local transformation, for example through financing decentralized energy supply or social investments.

The industry includes, for example, private and cooperative banks, savings banks, building societies and central banks.