Technical documentation for the financial carbon footprint of loans by GLS Bank in 2024 : scope 3.15 emission intensities & methodology

Abstract

This report is the result of work conducted on behalf of GLS Bank in 2025. The corresponding work package aims to calculate and operationalize the Financial Carbon Footprint of GLS Bank loans (indirect GHG emissions under Scope 3.15). The document at hand constitutes the "technical documentation" for this work. The research project that forms the basis of this report was carried out on behalf of GLS Bank. GLS Bank assigned the Wuppertal Institute with the calculation of the Scope 3.15 emissions of their loan programme in 2024. Moreover, they also asked for a set of calculation rules and background data to conduct such a calculation for future loan periods as well. Such GHG intensities usually estimate the emissions of an actor on the basis of the economic activity, the underlying value-chain-related emissions of this activity as well as some monetary reference unit so that each unit of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) can be directly associated with the loan value (e.g. as tons of CO2-equivalents per million Euro)