ECB Reports Progress, Identifies Gaps In Banks' Climate-Related Disclosures

In April 2023, the European Central Bank (ECB) published its 2022 assessment of climate-related and environmental risk disclosures of EU-based banks, finding that while most "significant institutions" "now disclose at least basic information" in most climate-related categories, an improvement relative to the ECB's 2021 assessment, the quality of information remains "low and is unlikely to provide market participants with insights on which they can act." The report is the third such assessment carried out by the ECB as part of its wider objective to ensure that the European banking sector discloses climate and environmental risk effectively and comprehensively. The ECB's 2022 assessment examined 103 significant banks, all under direct supervision of the ECB itself, as well as 28 "less significant institutions." The ECB also examined the disclosures of 12 banks from its list of global systematically-important banks based outside the EU in order to provide an