Since its launch in 2019, over 350 banks – representing approximately 54% of global banking assets – have chosen to implement the UN Principles for Responsible Banking (PRB) as a comprehensive means of addressing sustainability risks and managing impacts across their portfolios. 

But in the five years hence, as signatory banks have progressed on their responsible banking journeys, it’s clear that the sustainability transparency and disclosure landscape has matured and evolved.  

Good market practices, which emerged under the PRB framework, are now regulatory requirements. At the same time, voluntary reporting frameworks have improved for the better – increasing in quality, quantity, and sectoral specificity. As a result of these twin forces for good, banks now have a plethora of high-quality disclosure mechanisms and state-mandated policy to guide their sustainability reporting. 

The UN Environmental Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) has fully embraced these key sectoral developments. By continuing to evolve our support for members, we reinforce their efforts to more transparently communicate progress made in addressing the planet’s most pressing environmental, social, and economic challenges.  

For this reason, in Spring 2024, a working group of 27 PRB signatory banks came together – with inputs from civil society – to clarify the evolving role of the PRB as a strategic framework. Part of the working group’s remit included assessing how, considering the new regulatory/voluntary disclosure environment, UNEP FI might reduce reporting and assurance burdens for its members, particularly eliminating the need for signatories to disclose the same information in multiple reporting formats. We knew the time was ripe for this step-change approach because transparency had increased dramatically due to the improved quality of regional and global reporting frameworks. 

It was in this context that UNEP FI developed its Responsible Banking Progress Statement for PRB Signatories. 

A replacement of the existing PRB Reporting and Self–Assessment Template, UNEP FI’s new Progress Statement not only takes on a revised format – as an executive summary which consolidates a bank’s reporting into a readily digested short-form document – it also represents a renewed emphasis on demonstrating to both internal and external stakeholders, through crisp, concise narrative, how sustainability is a key aspect of the bank’s strategy and a driver of competitive advantage.  

By embracing – with the new Progress Statement – the current realities of an enhanced sustainability reporting landscape, we encourage PRB banks to re-allocate resources away from duplicative reporting activities. Instead, we recommend they focus on strategic monitoring, assessment and communication of progress, knowing that they can do so without overall loss of transparency and accountability. Download the report here.