July 2 () –
The president of CaixaBank, José Ignacio Goirigolzarri, has stated that Europe “is eagerly seeking energy autonomy”, so one of its main challenges is “investing in renewables, which is investing in autonomy”.
In his opinion, Europe is “facing a great opportunity” to advance towards greater energy self-sufficiency hand in hand with the environmental transition, despite the fact that at the moment “we are facing a reverse gear that is given by the situation we are going through”.
This was indicated in Bilbao in his speech at the XXVI Spain-United States Forum held at the University of Deusto and where, among others, he shared a table with Hugo Morán, Secretary of State for the Environment, Ministry of Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge; José W. Fernández, Undersecretary for Economic Growth, Energy and the Environment of the US Department of State; o Enrique Lores, president and CEO of HP.
“I think it is realistic to think that, in the short term, in Europe, we are going to see a reverse gear. In fact, we are already experiencing it with the increase in the use of coal. I understand that this is circumstantial and reasonable,” he indicated.
According to his analysis, just as it happened during the pandemic, the geopolitical conflict is accelerating trends. “Digitalization and the invasion of Ukraine, energy and, consequently, the transition required by climate change had a huge influence on the pandemic,” he detailed.
However, according to Goirigolzarri, the medium-term trends are very clear. “We have to be very realistic in the transition period. We must be aware of how stressed the public accounts are in general and in Europe in particular, with heavy indebtedness and great tension in our accounts. Therefore, I think that in the case European Union, I am afraid that we must attend to new bond issues such as the Next Generation, since the countries are not going to be able to afford investments of this magnitude”.
CAIXABANK’S CONTRIBUTION TO THE ENERGY TRANSITION
In this regard, he underlined that the role of banking and, of course, CaixaBank’s objective is to make a decisive contribution to the energy transition. “Our strategic plan for the next three years has sustainability as one of the transformational axes, making it tangible through financing companies in a transition towards a greener production model, the offer of products that promote the fight against climate and investment management. Sustainability, in short, modulates the bank’s strategy”, he explained.
In this regard, he recalled that the decarbonisation commitment (Net Zero) assumed by CaixaBank will mean a “very significant” reduction in financing for polluting companies until 2050, although, at this time, the entity’s risk criteria for approving operations already include the environmental issue.
In addition, CaixaBank’s 2022-2024 Strategic Plan contemplates the mobilization of 64,000 million euros in sustainable financing, as well as continuing to be the European bank with the largest amount put into circulation with sustainable debt issues.
Goirigolzarri has valued CaixaBank’s marketing of ‘green products’, both for companies and individuals, with the aim of promoting the fight against climate change.
Regarding asset management, the CaixaBank chairman explained that the entity is the leader in the Spanish market, with a total of 227,000 million euros of assets under management, which are invested in accordance with ESG criteria.
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