See results of the Financial System Benchmark
Benchmark findings point to finance leaders needing to double down on sustainability, not back away

The World Benchmarking Alliance assessed and ranked 400 of the world’s most influential financial institutions, including Bank of America, Allianz and CIMB on sustainability:
- Only 3% of financial institutions have climate transition plans in place, highlighting how crucial COP30 negotiations are this year.
- Boardrooms and executives have sustainability on their agendas, but real-world impact is still muted.
- Only one out of 400 institutions disclosed having a plan to address workers’ transition concerns.
- Finance is starting to recognise the systemic risk from nature and identifying the impact of financing activities.
Amsterdam, 21 January 2025 – The World Benchmarking Alliance’s (WBA) latest assessment of the global financial system reveals that most financial institutions are falling short of translating boardroom decisions into tangible impact. With many still continuing business as usual, they are failing to leverage their position to support a circular economy and a thriving society, all of which underpin the finance system itself.
However, according to the research findings, there are signs of good practice in which institutions across different regions are showing leadership.
The Financial System Benchmark assessed institutions who collectively manage around $200 trillion in assets – including banks such as HSBC and Bank of America, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, development finance institutions, asset managers and insurance companies, including the likes of Canadian CDPQ, Saudi’s PIF and Japanese SMBC. They influence the decision-making of businesses and the lives of billions of people. Given they move markets, these companies are also the guardrails to governments. Their role in building thriving economies, societies and nature is critical.
Despite widespread global dialogue on scaling private finance, WBA found that private finance is barely moving the dial, let alone using the full extent of its resources to reconnect finance back to people and planet. Given the needs of developing economies, and the goal to hit $300 billion from COP29, it is sobering that out of 400 institutions only 6% disclosed intentional finance to low- and middle-income countries.
As major banks have provided $7 trillion in loans to the oil and gas sector since the Paris Agreement, there is an annual $4 trillion funding gap to achieve sustainable development, which private finance is expected to help close. WBA’s research concludes that, despite the critical role private finance must play, by focusing on easy profits in developed markets, rather than investing in the efforts and innovations that the world needs most, the financial sector is preventing, rather than enabling, the move to clean energy.
The financial sector seems stuck and unwilling to set out plans on the energy transition. Only 3% of assessed financial institutions have any transition plans in place, which as a result, will limit adequate investment into industry. Worse still, only one institution disclosed a process to address the concerns of workers and other stakeholders impacted by the climate transition. Less than 5% of the assessed organisations have committed not to support new fossil fuel projects and only 6% have targets to scale their financing of climate solutions.
Encouragingly, when financial institutions see serious financial risks, they are starting to take action. For example, with at least half of global GDP being dependent on nature, making it a systemic risk to global financial stability, one in ten institutions have now identified the impacts of their financing activities on nature. However, only 2% of institutions have a strategy in place to manage those impacts.
Andrea Webster, World Benchmarking Alliance’s Head of the Financial System Transformation said:
Whilst it is encouraging to see some progress made by the financial sector, especially at the executive and board level, we do not yet see this translating into real world impact. Leadership must move from a closed-minded compliance mindset to an open-minded evolutionary one. Finance knows businesses must evolve or die. It must do the same.
While over 60% of institutions assign responsibility for implementing sustainability strategies, only 1% have an evidence-based strategy that links their financing activities to tangible impact for people and planet. Likewise, only 6% of assessed companies have due diligence processes in place to identify risks to human rights in their financing activities, despite 35% claiming to commit to protecting human rights.
Webster added:
Having CIMB, a Malaysian Bank, top the benchmark shows the relevancy of global principles on sustainability. It is proof that the pain of getting global consensus around these key issues helps institutions from across the world move forwards in the same direction.
With the ramping up of the political backlash in the US against ESG efforts, this benchmark is timely. Whilst several of the biggest banks in the US recently left the industry’s net zero target-setting group, the Net Zero Banking Alliance, it shows that other regions are moving ahead. Whilst the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative paused its activities to ensure it “remains fit for purpose in the new global context”, these independent findings should help support those institutions who are leading in their efforts, providing examples for others to follow. The findings will also help policymakers who are battling to solve tough issues globally, find points of consensus for the UN’s climate and nature COPs and Finance for Development process this year.
With hopes to push for urgent corporate action at a global scale, in 2026 the World Benchmarking Alliance will assess and rank the “SDG2000”, the 2,000 most influential companies in the world, across different industries including the 400 financial institutions again given the urgency. In preparation for next year’s milestone, WBA published the SDG2000 list earlier this week alongside a report highlighting how these companies have the power to substantially help or hinder a future that protects people and planet.
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