The city of Lyon voted this Thursday in the city council a system for selecting banking establishments on criteria of “social and environmental responsibility”, before contracting loans from them.
The municipality of Lyon, where bank loans represent a total of 400million eurosundertakes to borrow from banks when they position themselves in a strategy of limiting the negative environmental and social impacts of their financing for the climate and living organisms, indicates the deliberation, voted by the environmentalist majority and its leftist allies.
For her argument, Audrey Hnocque, the first deputy in charge of finance and public procurement, highlighted the harmful activities of certain banking establishments, particularly in terms of carbon footprint, higher than the whole of French territory for the four largest large companies, without naming them.
A questionnaire to make sure
A questionnaire, sent each year to banks, will therefore be put in place so that they declare in particular their actions to preserve biodiversity or fight against deforestationtheir ssupport for the development of renewable energies, as well as their strategy for reducing their CO2 emissions. He also asks whether the bank participates in projects relating to the fossil fuel sector.
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Some in the opposition saw in this approach a moralizing vision. We would prefer to see you negotiate good rates, in all impartiality, declared for her part Batrice de Montille, elected from the center right and independent group.
For the progressive and republican group, the method is a little brutal and it risks leading to missteps, confided Georges Kpnkian.
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Several cities have already adopted this method of selecting banks, including Paris, Bordeaux or even Besanon. Pioneer in this field, Bourg-en-Bresse (Ain) has been using the ethical questionnaire for two years.
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