BNP Paribas has responded to investor pressure led by ShareAction with a new oil and gas policy, but the group says that gaps still remain.

BNP Paribas strengthened its oil and gas policy for the second time in three months following the engagement with new commitments from the bank that include financing restrictions that will have an impact on its upstream oil client base and to no longer directly finance new oil and gas fields.

The move follows investor letters sent by ShareAction in February to five major European financiers of top companies with oil and gas expansion plans. The letters urged the banks to stop directly financing new oil and gas fields and take action against the companies behind these fields.

Kelly Shields,(pictured) project and campaign manager at ShareAction, said: “Following months of engagement with investors and ShareAction, BNP Paribas has improved its oil and gas policy at least in part. Its new commitments are welcome and suggest that banks’ financing appetite for new oil and gas is rapidly drying up. That said, BNP Paribas still has a way to go before meeting the climate standards expected of them by investors and the public. In particular, the bank’s corporate financing restrictions do not cover a large portion of its client base, leaving the door open to indirectly financing new oil and gas activities.”

Following the commitments, BNP Paribas becomes the world’s second largest bank to have excluded financing for new oil & gas fields after HSBC, and now meets the minimum standard set by 11 out of the top 25 European banks. BNP Paribas, which was Europe’s largest fossil fuel financier last year, has also committed to phase out from non-diversified oil companies and closed a key loophole in its restrictions on companies active in unconventional oil and gas.

ShareAction is now focussing pressure on Societe Generale, Crédit Agricole, Barclays and Deutsche Bank as the remaining major financiers of oil & gas expansion in Europe that have still to make a commitment to cease financing for new oil and gas fields.

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