Deutsche Bank sets €900bn clean finance target

Deutsche Bank, Germany’s largest lender is doubling down on climate promises with a €900bn sustainable and transition finance target by 2030 and the publication of its first Transition Finance Framework

The plans, which were announced coinciding with its Capital Markets Day in London earlier this week, aim to establish the bank as “a trusted partner in the global transformation.”

Under its new finance targets, the bank aims to provide nearly €1trn in sustainable and transition finance by the end of the decade, this excludes activities of DWS, its asset management subsidiary. The bank said it has already deployed €440bn of its total target as of Q3 2025.

In its new Transition Finance Framework, the bank aims to draw a clearer distinction between pure play sustainable finance activities and what it calls “the financing of activities required on a credible path towards net zero as well as sustainability-linked solutions.” This could range from providing a loan to retrofit a gas-fired power plant for hydrogen co-firing tofinancing the production of turquoise hydrogen” the bank said.

Deutsche Bank has also stepped up as a facilitator in the first Article 6 Carbon Credit Transaction announced by the governments of Suriname and Honduras at COP30 in Belém last week. It aims to facilitate 300 transactions by the end of 2027 which contribute to these purposes in alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation, SDG 14: Life Below Water, and SDG 15: Life on Land).

Earlier this year, the campaign group Reclaim Finance concluded that none of the major European lenders had credible transition plans and called out Deutsche Bank as the fifth largest financier to the fossil fuel sector in Europe. The group criticised that Deutsche lacked a concrete decarbonisation strategy or a robust coal phaseout policy and that fossil-fuel related activities were classed as sustainable.