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< Belfius in the community Our sustainable strategy A responsible bank-insurer Our solutions Climate & environment People & society Our norms and standards Partners
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Climate and environment

Our own footprint

At Belfius, we have incorporated sustainability into our strategy, based on two guiding principles: “Walk the talk” and “Customers in the driver’s seat”. By applying our Walk the talk principle, our aim is to set an example and decarbonise our own business as much as possible. With our second principle, Customers in the driver’s seat, we seek to inspire our customers to set ambitious targets on sustainability. We also want to support them in achieving these ambitions by offering a range of relevant solutions, products and services.

Our CO2 emissions

<p>Our total carbon footprint</p>

Target for reducing emissions:

  • A general emission reduction target: to achieve a 42% reduction in our own emissions by 2030 compared to 2022. This target includes our buildings (head offices, regional offices, salaried agencies and franchises), the company cars, business travel, employee commuting and waste.
  • A specific target for Belfius Auto Lease: to achieve a 50% reduction in the average emission intensity of the vehicles leased to clients (gCO2e/km) by 2030 compared to 2022.
  • A specific target for the Belfius Insurance real estate portfolio: to achieve a 64.7% reduction in the average emission intensity of the real estate leased to clients (kgCO2e/m2) by 2030 compared to 2022.
  • A specific target for Belfius electricity consumption: to achieve 100% renewable electricity for Belfius head and regional offices, salaried agencies, Crefius and Elantis buildings by 2025.

To find out more, see our Sustainability Report >

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Electricity consumption

Our aim is to ensure that 100% of the electricity consumed by the Belfius head and regional offices, salaried agencies, Crefius and Elantis buildings comes from renewable sources by 2025. In 2024, there were still two buildings with grey electricity contracts. Other buildings have already a green electricity contract and the consumption of green electricity relative to the total consumption amounted to 96.3%

Franchises

We view the franchises (independent branches) separately from other buildings because, technically, these are “indirect” emissions.

All franchises switched to green electricity from April 2023 onwards. Because of that, the emissions of our franchises (which is mainly determined by their consumption of natural gas and electricity) fell by 26% in 2023 compared to 2022, and fell by another 21% in 2024. The franchises have been one of the major contributors to our overall decarbonization in the past two years and are one of the main reasons why we are well on track to reach our general emission target by 2030.

Customer vehicles

In 2023, there was an increase in emissions related to Belfius Auto Lease. This was due to a disruption in the automotive supply chain, which caused significant delays in deliveries and, as a result, a large increase of 30 kt CO2e (for 2023), which cancelled out any emission reductions achieved in other categories.

In 2024, however, a significant evolution of the BAL car fleet took place. Driven by the electrification efforts in the transport sector, increased customer demand for electric vehicles and regulatory policies incentivizing the use of electric vehicles, the absolute emissions of the BAL car fleet were 12% lower in 2024 compared to 2023.

Waste

  • The production of waste remained stable between 2023 and 2024. The level of waste is now 47% below the 2019 benchmark.
  • Paper (confidential and non-confidential), cardboard, cardboard drinking goblets and paper towels/wipes are recycled.

Company restaurant

A number of initiatives have been put in place to reduce food and non-food waste, including composting food waste or converting it into biogas, using sustainable products, giving priority to shorter production chains and eliminating single-use plastics.

Commuting and business travel

Belfius does everything it can to reduce CO2 emissions linked to the commuting travel of its staff.

However, reducing the emissions of employee travel, and especially employee commuting, is difficult given the objectives to have higher on-site presence.

Employee commuting emissions increased with 3% this year compared to last year and this value is expected to increase even more in the future due to the expected increase in office days.

Business travel emissions, on the other hand, decreased with 6%, thereby compensating the increase in emissions related to employee commuting.

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Our financed emissions

‏‏‎ ‎We have calculated financed emissions for three consecutive years: 2022, 2023 and 2024. The full results are shown in this table, where total emissions are the sum of Scope 1 and 2 financed emissions and Scope 3 financed emissions. Note that we only calculate Scope 3 financed emissions for business and corporate loans, equities and bonds.

(1) Improvements were made to the stocks and bonds, as well as the mortgage loans of 2022, to allow for a better comparison with 2023.
(2) Both construction and renovation loans are not considered under the asset classes of mortgage loans and commercial real estate loans due to the lack of a methodology in the PCAF 2022 standard. We plan to determine the incorporated emissions (i.e., the financed scope 3 emissions for mortgage loans associated with the construction process and material use throughout the building's lifecycle) in the near future to expand our understanding of the actual environmental impact of our portfolio.
(3) Not part of the PCAF methodology, a detailed description of the calculation methodology can be found in the Appendix of the 2023 sustainability report.
(4) This asset class includes loans for vehicles for both retail and commercial customers.
(5) The methodology for project financing covers only power generation projects, all of which are renewable projects at Belfius.
(6) De totale hoeveelheid emissies waarvoor een methodologie bestaat.
(7) In 2023, we also determined for the first time our sovereign emissions, i.e., emissions associated with our sovereign financing activities. However, to avoid double counting of emissions, these are not included in the total sum of emissions.
(8) The highest score, score 1, represents the highest data quality corresponding to the actual emissions of the company or asset, while the lowest score, score 5, represents the broadest estimates based on the sectoral average of the financed activity.

The main sectors in terms of emissions are the following:

  • manufacturing industry
  • electricity and gas
  • real estate.

The retail sector is also fairly important, but is included in the category for “others”.

However, financial exposure to real estate is very high (mortgages, CRE and property companies). Consequently, in terms of emissions intensity (tCO2e/euro), the real estate assets sector is much less intensive than other sectors. Belfius has a very high exposure to the real estate sector.

Sustainable Technology

Belfius is a founder member of the Institute for Sustainable IT and we have signed the Sustainable IT Charter (The Sustainable IT Charter - (isit-be.org)), which commits us to adopting a sustainable approach to technology for our organisation.

Our ESG action plan places the emphasis on:

  • Partnerships with suppliers committed to sustainable development, promoting ethical business practices and reducing their environmental footprint throughout their value chain.
  • Developing eco-coding to minimise the use of IT resources and energy consumption.
  • Developing affordable products and services for our customers.
  • Optimising the use of our infrastructure and managing the environmental impact of our equipment throughout its lifecycle.
  • Adjusting our processes, where necessary.
  • Managing the carbon footprint of our technology department and other key sustainability indicators.
  • Raising awareness among employees and partners of the importance of sustainable IT practices and encouraging responsible use.

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Read more:

 Our sustainable strategy

 A responsible bank-insurer

 Our sustainable solutions

 People & society

 Our norms and standards


Or read the Sustainability Statement in our Annual Report 2024.

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