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Ideas for people
and planetTM
The RBC Climate Blueprint
Our strategy is to support our clients across sectors in the transition, while focusing first on the areas that we believe present the greatest opportunities and risks. We will continue to measure and track our progress and evolve our strategy to be responsive to the needs of our clients and communities.
Goal
To be the bank of choice for the transition to a low-carbon and resilient economy
Strategic priorities
Advise and finance client actions that support the transition
Actions:
Engage and support clients to help them succeed in the transition
Increase green and decarbonization financing
Engage with others in advancing climate solutions
Actions:
Help scale climate solutions through equity and community investments
Convene industry and share economic research and insights
Integrate climate considerations into our business and operations
Actions:
Advance climate risk management practices
Enable our employees to make informed climate-related business decisions
Reduce emissions in our operations and supply chain
Measuring progress
Our actions are underpinned with goals, initiatives and metrics that we report on in our annual sustainability reporting.
View our Sustainability ReportingBackground
The RBC Climate Blueprint is our climate strategy. It was originally published in 2019. This updated blueprint outlines the priorities and actions to support our goal to be the bank of choice for the transition to a low-carbon and resilient economy. It also reflects a clearer tie to the RBC Purpose Framework – Ideas for People and Planet™ (the Purpose Framework) which was introduced in 2023. We aim to deliver the blueprint’s priorities and actions further to the guiding principles described in the Purpose Framework.
RBC provides financing to support the growth of low-carbon energy, while also providing financing to meet current energy needs, including traditional sources of energy such as oil & gas. RBC is playing its role in helping our clients in the transition to a low-carbon economy, including supporting clients in high-emitting, hard-to-abate sectors in their efforts to decarbonize.
RBC’s climate strategy applies to all of its business segments and subsidiaries but does not apply to the investment advisory activities and recommendations of as well as the assets under management or administration by RBC Global Asset Management (RBC GAM) and RBC Wealth Management (RBC WM).1
Given the complex and evolving nature of climate measurement methodologies, data availability and data quality, it is acknowledged that certain climate-related metrics contain a high level of measurement uncertainty. Additionally, legislative and regulatory changes, market developments, shifts in public policy, industrial and technological advancements and/or consumer behaviour may impact our climate strategy. As a result, we intend to monitor and update our climate strategy to reflect such changes as we deem necessary.
View Key termsKey Terms
Climate solutions – technology, products, services or actions that help mitigate or adapt to the impacts of climate change. Solutions include those that support greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions and/or the low-carbon transition, but also those that support outcomes linked to society’s resilience to the physical impacts of climate change (e.g., adaptation of infrastructure, nature and/or biodiversity gains).
Decarbonization finance – we define decarbonization finance as including two elements: 1) the decarbonization activity and 2) the client having a sufficiently robust transition plan. Decarbonization activities are those that help reduce emissions from high-emitting, hard-to-abate sectors. Refer to our sustainability reporting for a more detailed definition.
Green finance – refers to financing towards activities aligned to the categories listed in the International Capital Market Association Green Bond Principles and the Loan Market Association / Loan Syndications and Trading Association / Asia Pacific Loan Market Association Green Loan Principles. Examples of categories listed in the Principles include renewable energy, energy efficiency, environmentally sustainable management of living natural resources and land use, clean transportation and green buildings. We are currently reviewing our detailed eligibility criteria for specific activities within each category and may update our definition at the conclusion of this review.
Low-carbon – an economy with minimal output of GHG emissions.
Resilient or resilience – the capacity to anticipate, cope with, recover from, or adapt to shock, disruption, stress or changing factors in the external environment. In the context of climate, this refers to the resilience of the economy to the effects of climate change. In the context of skills, this refers to the capacity of an individual to adapt to industry shifts, technological advancements in the workplace, organizational changes, and career pivots. In the context of communities, this refers to communities being resilient to a wide range of risks while maintaining an acceptable level of functioning without compromising long-term prospects of sustainability development, peace and security, human rights, and wellbeing for all.
Transition – refers to the economic, energy, technological, and societal transformation that is required to achieve the significant GHG emissions reductions necessary for a low-carbon or net-zero world. This will impact all sectors, and is highly dependent on substantial GHG emissions reductions in high-emitting sectors.
For further details, please refer to our sustainability reporting (rbc.com/sustainability-reporting).
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Our Impact
We’re helping to turn ideas into action by leveraging our business, operations, employees, community investment partners as well as our research and insights, to support the transition to a net-zero economy, equip people with the skills for a thriving future, and drive more inclusive opportunities for prosperity.
Sustainability Reporting
Learn about our approach to sustainability matters and our overarching strategies, highlights and performance related to sustainability topics.
RBC WM operates through indirectly wholly owned subsidiaries of the bank including, but not limited to: RBC Dominion Securities Inc. (Member–Canadian Investor Protection Fund), RBC Direct Investing Inc. (Member–Canadian Investor Protection Fund), Royal Mutual Funds Inc. (Member–Canadian Investor Protection Fund), RBC InvestEase Inc., RBC Phillips, Hager & North Investment Counsel Inc., RBC Capital Markets, LLC, RBC Private Counsel (USA) Inc., RBC Dominion Securities Global Limited, RBC Wealth Management Financial Services Inc., Royal Trust Corporation of Canada and The Royal Trust Company, City National Bank and its subsidiaries, and RBC Europe Limited.
The information in this webpage is provided for general information purposes only. The recipient is solely liable for any use of the information contained in this webpage, and neither RBC nor any of its affiliates nor any of their respective directors, officers, employees or agents shall be held responsible for any direct or indirect damages arising from the use of this document. This webpage contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of certain securities laws. Information contained in this webpage is or may be based on assumptions, estimates and judgements. For cautionary statements relating to the information in this webpage, refer to the Caution regarding forward-looking statements and the Important notice regarding this Report appendices in RBC’s 2025 Sustainability Report, available at our Sustainability Reporting site. Except as required by law, none of RBC or any of its affiliates undertake to update any information in this webpage.
Advise and finance client actions that support the transition
Key 2025 highlights
- Established approaches to better understand the climate plans for our commercial real estate sector clients in RBC Capital Markets® and Commercial Banking1 to help to assess the risks and opportunities for this sector
- Our lending exposure to pure play2 renewable energy3 entities and estimated exposure to renewable energy through lending to mixed-energy entities4 increased by a multiple of 1.96 to $10.2 billion since 2023, advancing towards our goal to tripling this lending by 2030 across RBC Capital Markets and Commercial Banking, relative to our 2023 baseline
- Created a dedicated Energy Transition centre of excellence within RBC Capital Markets to support clients on energy transition with advisory and capital
RBC Capital Markets formalized its approach to engaging with commercial real estate clients on their transition plans. This includes the development of a transition readiness framework tailored to the commercial real estate sector to assess the relative maturity of clients’ transition plans, starting with an assessment of the unsecured real estate portfolio in 2025. Commercial Banking tested and scaled up engagement with these clients in 2025, which involved enabling client-facing teams to have climate-related conversations with real estate clients and establishing sector-specific expertise in the Commercial Banking Sustainable Finance Group.
Pure play refers to entities that engage primarily in low-carbon energy and enabling activities. Industry activities are identified by RBC’s SIC codes. We assign SIC codes to entities in line with RBC’s enterprise standards for the allocation of industry codes to clients.
Renewable energy is defined as the construction, development, operation, acquisition, maintenance and connection of the following renewable energy generation sources: wind, solar, geothermal with direct emissions of less than 100 g CO2e/kWh, waste biomass and renewable biofuels with life-cycle emissions less than 100 g CO2e/kWh sourced from sustainable agriculture and forestry residues or from non-recyclable municipal solid waste, tidal and hydroelectricity. New hydroelectricity development projects >25 MW must have a power density of over 10 W/m2 or operate with lifecycle emissions below a threshold of 50 g CO2e/kWh (includes refurbishment of existing hydroelectricity facilities, provided the size of the dam or reservoir is not increased).
Mixed-energy entities refers to entities that engage in both low-carbon energy and enabling activities, and high carbon energy activities (and/or other unrelated activities). For lending to mixed-energy entities, it may not be possible to directly measure the proportion of funds used towards the client’s low-carbon energy and enabling activities versus high-carbon energy activities; for example, general corporate purpose lending. As a result, we use RBC’s SIC codes to allocate our lending between low-carbon energy and enabling activities and high-carbon energy activities. We assign SIC codes to entities in line with RBC’s enterprise standards for the allocation of industry codes to clients. For example, if the SIC code allocation for a mixed-energy entity is 40% to renewable energy, 40% of the loan is allocated to renewable energy.
Engage with others in advancing climate solutions
Key 2025 highlights
- Committed $82 million in fund and direct investments, totalling $249 million since 2022, to support the development and scaling of climate solutions, progressing towards our goal to allocate $1 billion by 20301
- The RBC Climate Action Institute published its third annual flagship report, sharing insights and ideas to help contribute to Canada’s climate progress
- Supported over 190 community investment partners that are advancing climate mitigation and/or nature-based climate solutions2 with $28 million in community investments through RBC, RBC Foundation and RBC Foundation USA3
While our approach may evolve over time under this category of investment, we intend to prioritize allocating capital toward fund and direct investments that are intended to lead to GHG emissions reductions in Canada and globally. Our investment commitments eligible to count towards this goal may also include support for climate solutions with anticipated outcomes linked to biodiversity, nature and/or adaptation, among others, which may not lead to GHG emissions reductions. For purposes of tracking progress towards this goal, our eligible investment commitments made from 2022 onward are included in this metric. Cumulative climate investment commitments at the end of 2025 have been revalued using the spot exchange rate as at October 31, 2025.
Nature-based solutions refer to actions to protect, sustainably manage, or restore natural ecosystems, that address societal challenges such as climate change, human health, food and water security, and disaster risk reduction effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing human wellbeing and biodiversity benefits.
This amount is part of a commitment of $2 billion in community investments by 2035. This included $10 million towards RBC Tech for Nature®, fulfilling RBC and RBC Foundation’s $100 million commitment made in 2019.
Integrate climate considerations into our business and operations
Key 2025 highlights
- Enhanced advisor training on climate topics in Commercial Banking through a program developed in collaboration with Green Economy Canada to help advisors support clients on their transition and resilience journeys
- Continued to work with landlords to help reduce emissions from our own operations by incorporating climate-focused clauses1 within new and renewed lease agreements
These climate-focused lease clauses are designed to support RBC’s commitment to reducing emissions in its operations by asking landlords to commit to climate-focused actions and share relevant climate data with RBC. For more information, see our Operational Emissions website.