UBS has revised its target for achieving net-zero operational emissions, extending the deadline by ten years from 2025 to 2035, according to the bank's 2024 Sustainability Report published on 17 March 2025. The Swiss banking group attributed the delay principally to the significant expansion of its corporate real estate portfolio that resulted from the acquisition of Credit Suisse, which was completed in 2023 and added a large and geographically dispersed stock of buildings, data centres, and associated energy consumption to UBS's operational footprint. The revised target reflects management's assessment that genuine operational net-zero across a materially enlarged estate within the original 2025 timeframe was no longer achievable.
The bank also cited the latest definition of net-zero targets under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive as a contributing factor in the revision. CSRD requirements have influenced how European financial institutions are expected to frame and disclose emissions commitments, including the scope and boundaries applied to operational net-zero targets. The combination of an enlarged physical footprint and evolving regulatory reporting standards provided the dual rationale that UBS presented for pushing back the headline operational target by a decade.
INTERIM REDUCTION GOALS MAINTAINED
Despite the delay to the ultimate net-zero date, UBS confirmed it has established a meaningful interim target to reduce scope 1 and scope 2 emissions by 57% by 2030, measured against a 2023 baseline year. The choice of 2023 as the baseline reflects the first full year following the completion of the Credit Suisse integration and provides a reference point that fully captures the enlarged operational perimeter of the combined institution. Scope 1 emissions cover direct greenhouse gas releases from sources owned or controlled by UBS, such as on-site fuel combustion at its facilities, while scope 2 covers indirect emissions arising from purchased energy, primarily electricity used to power offices, data centres, and other facilities.
The 57% reduction goal by 2030 against the 2023 baseline represents a substantial and binding commitment to decarbonising the bank's direct and indirect energy use within a defined timeframe. By anchoring the interim target to the enlarged post-acquisition baseline, UBS has set a reference point that fully accounts for the additional emissions associated with the Credit Suisse estate, providing a more realistic but still ambitious trajectory towards the revised 2035 net-zero destination. Progress against this interim target will be reported annually and will be a key metric for sustainability-focused investors tracking the bank's climate commitments.
NZBA MEMBERSHIP RETAINED
UBS confirmed in the sustainability report that it remains a member of the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, the United Nations-convened industry body whose members are committed to aligning both their lending and investment portfolios and their own operations with net-zero emissions pathways consistent with limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Membership of the NZBA carries obligations relating to financed emissions disclosures as well as operational targets, and the decision to retain membership signals that the revision to the operational timeline does not represent a broader withdrawal from the bank's overall climate strategy.
The announcement from UBS comes as a number of global banks and financial institutions have revisited climate commitments established in the early years of the 2020s, with the complexity of large corporate transactions such as the Credit Suisse acquisition providing specific operational justifications in some cases. The full 2024 Sustainability Report gives institutional investors, environmental organisations, and other stakeholders detailed information against which to assess UBS's progress across the full range of its sustainability commitments and to hold the bank accountable to the revised targets it has now publicly set.