pbb footprint

At pbb, this includes emissions from company cars. In 2022, pbb discontinued the company car policy applicable to its German sites. As a result, the existing fleet is being phased out gradually.
Compared with the previous year, the number of company cars was 8 (2024: 23), which was again significantly lower than the previous year’s figure. In total, company cars generated 45.24 t CO₂eq (2024: 139 t CO₂eq). The majority of the leasing contracts expired by the end of 2025 and were not renewed. The remaining contracts expire by the end of 2026.

Furthermore, the pbb Group will continue to provide pool vehicles for business purposes. It cannot be ruled out that any GHG savings on the bank’s part resulting from the phasing out of the company car fleet may be offset, matched or even exceeded by corresponding GHG emissions from employees’ privately used vehicles. However, no data is currently available on this. pbb promotes environmentally friendly commuting by its employees (see Scope 3 emissions).
The reduction in Scope 1 emissions is to continue to 190 t CO₂eq by 2030.

At pbb, this includes indirect emissions from electricity purchased for the leased premises at pbb’s locations. The Business Campus Garching, where the building leased by pbb is located, serves as the company’s headquarters and is committed to the responsible use of its resources. The building was constructed in accordance with modern energy standards at the time of its construction. In 2023, the Business Campus’s digital infrastructure was also comprehensively tested and certified.

The energy centre and the site-wide building management system enable connection to renewable energy sources, thereby optimising energy consumption. Rainwater collected on the campus grounds is stored in cisterns, purified and used for all outdoor irrigation. Visitor parking spaces are unpaved. During the winter months, the Business Campus is heated using renewable energy from hot water extracted via geothermal energy by EWG Garching, whilst in summer the geothermal hot water is converted into cold water using absorber technology and can then be used to cool the office spaces. The Business Campus operates photovoltaic systems, a high proportion of whose output is fed into the Business Campus’s electricity grid. The Business Campus’s remaining electricity consumption is covered by green electricity generated by hydro and wind power plants. The company headquarters’ entire electricity requirement has been covered entirely by green electricity since 2011.

Since 2015, pbb’s other German locations have also been using green electricity exclusively. The overseas locations also source their electricity largely from renewable energy sources. Exceptions are the offices in Madrid, Stockholm and New York, which are only partially supplied with green electricity. Here, medium-term energy efficiency measures are being planned where possible.
In addition, energy is saved on a permanent basis through energy-efficient office equipment and strict, needs-based device management.
An overview of electricity consumption at all locations can be found here.
The target for 2030 is to emit a maximum of 5.3 t CO₂eq in Scope 2 emissions relative to electricity consumption. 

This includes emissions from the operation of data centres, business travel and staff commuting.

In addition to data protection and the reliability of the data centres, Power Usage Effectiveness is also a key metric. This expresses the energy efficiency of a data centre. The contractually agreed Power Usage Effectiveness of 1.6 with the Frankfurt-based data centre has been maintained since 2020. Furthermore, the data centre’s electricity consumption was covered by green electricity.

Where travel is necessary, all pbb employees are encouraged to use rail as the most sustainable travel option. In addition, a tool has been developed for individual departments to better monitor emissions from business travel. This provides departments with an overview of the CO₂ emissions caused by their business travel.

Carbon emissions resulting from air and rail travel as well as hotel stays amounted to 426 t CO₂eq across the Group (2024: 506 t CO₂eq).

Both the company headquarters in Garching and pbb’s other locations are connected to local public transport. The provision of charging facilities in Garching also promotes the use of electric vehicles. In addition, there are car-sharing schemes and opportunities to form car pools. Furthermore, there is an additional charging facility for e-bikes in the bicycle storage room at the Garching site. For employees in Germany, environmentally friendly commuting is made more attractive through the promotion of the Deutschlandticket.

We have emissions data for every property we finance. To this end, we use the PCAF data quality score classification ranging from one to four.

For data with data quality scores of one to three, we use data from clients’ energy performance certificates (energy consumption certificates or energy demand certificates). As a rule, these energy performance certificates only take carbon emissions into account. Data with a data quality score of four is estimated using PCAF emission factors based on the property type and the country of the financed property.

For the development of the decarbonisation pathway, only properties with data quality scores of one to three were used for the five key property types (residential, office, retail, industrial/logistics and hotel/leisure). Consequently, a total commitment of around 75% was used for the development of the climate pathway.

The calculated portfolio baseline enables the decarbonisation of the property finance portfolio to be projected, taking into account the current business plan and its extension through to 2050. As at 31 December 2025, GHG emissions intensity stood at 44.0 kg CO₂eq/m² (2024: 45.9 kg CO₂eq/m²).
 

In order to align its financing portfolio with the 1.5-degree target, pbb has defined, as part of its transition plan, the measure of developing a decarbonisation pathway aimed at reducing GHG emissions in its banking operations.

This was developed in 2024 for the REF portfolio. Climate targets were set based on the greenhouse gas footprint of the financing portfolio. On this basis, pbb aims, among other things, to reduce the GHG emission intensity of the REF portfolio to the following target values for the years 2027, 2028, 2030 and 2050.

-    2027: 39.8 kg CO2eq/m²  (0.54 million tonnes CO2eq)
-    2028: 37.2 kg CO2eq/m² (0.48 million tonnes CO2eq)
-    2030: 31.4 kg CO2eq/m² (0.42 million tonnesCO2eq)
-    2050: 1.1 kg CO2eq/m²  (0.02 million tonnes CO2eq) 

The pbb Group has established a data-driven ESG ecosystem.
As a first step, data on various sustainability aspects of the financed properties – such as green building certificates, year of construction, etc. – is collected and recorded. To this end, information from both internal sources, such as client questionnaires, and data from external providers is consolidated within pbb’s Green Tool.

This is followed by a comprehensive analysis of the data regarding physical risks, the EU taxonomy assessment and a degree-Celsius analysis. Furthermore, a specially developed decarbonisation tool is used to determine the climate risks of each individual property and the decarbonisation pathway based on CRREM.

The pbb Group uses the results of these analyses to improve its interaction with customers and to meet their needs by providing the analysis results and through the Group’s ESG products, such as the Green Loan.

The aim is to provide support for the financing of green property acquisitions, green developments and transformation projects, as well as energy-efficient refurbishments, thereby making an active contribution to the decarbonisation of the property sector in its role as a transformation financier.