Bankers for Net Zero (B4NZ) – ‘Perseus’ ► Icebreaker One

Perseus Steering Group — to go far, we go together

“The UK government is working with Bankers for Net Zero, the British Business Bank and a range of industry stakeholders, to automate SME sustainability reporting on a national scale…building on both Open Banking and Open Energy.” — UK Green Finance Strategy

“IIGCC is delighted to join Perseus’ steering group. Access to assurable data is key for financial institutions on their journey to net zero and is vital in incentivising financial innovation”, Hugh Garnett, Institutional Investor Group on Climate Change.

Introduction and overview

Icebreaker One is leading a programme of work with B4NZ (B4NZ is the UK country chapter of the NZBA, which is part of UNEP FI and GFANZ). Codename: Perseus

Success for 2023 will be to:

Do one thing well: build a demonstrator that enables assurable data to flow automatically from the real economy (energy companies) to the financial economy (banks) with the permission of the customer (SME), and improve the quality and impact of outcomes for stakeholders.
Go far together: build the process that enables prioritisation of actions that link disclosure to impact, address the technical and legal implementation challenges, agree on cohesive communications, and identify potential policy interventions.

Perseus will unlock access to capital through better access to assurable data

We are developing pragmatic whole-of-market solutions to create rapidly scalable, low-effort, low-friction sustainability reporting. This will help unlock access to capital by starting to automate GHG reporting for every SME in the country.

Start by doing one thing well (electricity usage for every SME to automate GHG reporting)

Starting with SMEs, UK banks and energy companies, we will create both a common framework (based on aligning around existing standards, not creating new ones) and implement it to deliver a solution by COP28 in Dec 2023. This will begin the journey to automate GHG reporting for every SME in the UK.

The initiative will act to minimise the time commitment from all Steering and Advisory Group participants, with a strong focus on scope containment and the bulk of the work being carried out by the implementation team.

Mobilising green investment: Green Finance Strategy 2023

Further, the 2030 Strategic framework for international climate and nature action states: “To make rapid progress we need to realign financial flows, rapidly decarbonise key sectors of the global economy, e.g., power, transport and agriculture, and scale up efforts to adapt”