Climate Expert Corporate Bank

In December 2022 our bank announced its Climate Strategy. Our Climate Strategy, as detailed in this report, is a plan of action designed to achieve our goal of bringing our portfolios into line with limiting global warming to a 1.5°C scenario and supporting the transition to a net zero economy by 2050. We have joined the Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) providing us with a framework for our climate action. We are committed to aligning our portfolios and operations with a net zero trajectory and will seek to improve and scale our offering in terms of expertise, capital and partnerships, our key tools as a bank. We have set intermediate targets for 2030 for five priority sectors: oil and gas, power generation, shipping, commercial real estate (CRE) and residential mortgages. We will continue to work on other sectors that will follow in coming years.

Our Corporate Bank (CB) – more specifically with the Sustainability Expertise Team (SET) – the Climate Team has been set up in 2023 to facilitate meeting the requirements under NZBA and as published in our Climate Strategy report. The scope includes both CB and Business Clients & Ecosystems (BC&E). The Climate Expert will predominantly focus on specific CB priority sectors (wave 1: New Energies, Shipping, CRE; wave 2: Agri, Inland Shipping). In addition your focus will be on providing support to the new sector decarbonization pathways and work with these sectors to successfully implement our climate plan. And you will also provide knowledge and expertise in activities related to the Climate Plan.

As Climate Expert, close coordination with internal stakeholders is in important part of your role, as well as providing guidance and training to our sector teams. If you would like to pioneer and help ABN AMRO to take steps on unexplored sustainability ground, this position may be for you!

Your job

As Climate Expert, you take a supporting role on behalf of our Corporate Bank to ensure that (specific) sectors meet or exceed the bank’s climate ambition. Whilst maintaining our key focus regarding supporting our clients in their transition to more sustainable business models. Additionally, you liaise with key stakeholders within the bank, such as the Client Sectors, Sustainability Centre of Excellence, Sector Expertise, Risk, ESG Data, Finance and external consultants. You work together with our Climate Lead and the other Climate Experts within SET as well as with change- and implementation managers from the Business Implementation team. Your focus is on existing and new Climate Plan sectors. You will join the new sector pathways workstream and ensure that your learnings will be shared with these so called wave 3 and 4 sectors as and when implementation commences.

Besides, you provide support to our sector teams to ensure that the processes, tools, training and guidelines are in place in order to implement and execute the Climate Strategy for our Corporate Bank. Your tasks include amongst others:

• Provide support and guidance for assessing and classifying the low-carbon transition readiness of clients;
• Organize required support for coverage bankers, such as the development of client questionnaires, writing guidance and organizing trainings for our client dialogues. Liaise with other – related programs such as SFR and CASY – to ensure requirements are aligned and efficient;
• Contribute to the development of dashboards and sector diagnostics tools, as well as sourcing the required data to ensure it is supportive for client engagement processes;
• Be part of the project team on new CB sectors;
• Review and challenge existing targets;
• Be and remain updated on the latest developments on climate strategies and regulations;
• Liaise with our internal stakeholders on climate (plan) related matters and provide knowledge and expertise to other climate related activities in the bank;
• Organize and/or participate in internal (and occasionally external) events to update the audience on the Corporate Bank’s climate ambitions and efforts.

Working environment

As Climate Expert, you are part of the CB SET. Our team has a strong focus on facilitating the growth of the Sustainable Finance Portfolio. SET includes Sustainability Advisory, Sustainable Finance Products, Sustainability Risk Reporting Regulations & Policies and Climate Strategy and Client Engagement for our CB and BC&E. As Climate Expert, you will also have a role in the Business Implementation and Transformation workstreams of the ongoing CB Climate Project.

Our team consists of experienced and enthusiastic colleagues. Within our team there is an open and informal atmosphere, and we are open to the opinions, views and cultural background of others. You work directly with the Climate Lead and other Climate Experts within SET.