Fidelity Bank champions climate adaptation
Fidelity Bank Ghana has positioned itself to champion climate adaptation by embedding environmental risk considerations into its core banking operations and financing strategies.
“Adaptation is not only essential for resilience — it is also bankable when paired with the right partnerships, products, and policies.
“Fidelity Bank is proud to be leading on this front in Ghana, and we look forward to working with various stakeholders present and the Global Centre on adaptation and others to scale our collective impact,” the Deputy Managing Director, Operations and Support Functions at Fidelity Bank, Atta Yeboah Gyan, said.
This commitment signals a significant shift in how financial institutions across Ghana are approaching climate risk management, moving beyond traditional risk mitigation to actively financing adaptation solutions.
It is further solidified by a robust Environmental and Social Management System (ESMS), meticulously aligned with IFC Performance Standards and the Bank of Ghana’s Sustainable Banking Principles.
Mr Gyan was speaking in a panel discussion at the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Programme Partnership Forum in Accra on the theme: "Unlocking growth through climate resilience and private sector leadership."
He said “At Fidelity Bank Ghana, we consider climate adaptation a strategic imperative — not only as a risk management issue, but also a value creation opportunity.
"We have identified climate risk as a critical ESG material topic through our double materiality assessment, integrated into our environmental and social governance processes."
To effectively manage both physical and transition climate risks, he said the bank recently conducted its first portfolio-level climate scenario analysis across the Retail and Corporate & Investment Banking (CIB) segments.
He said the comprehensive assessment, which also included an internal analysis of potential climate-related disruptions to the bank's branches and ATMs, had directly informed the creation of detailed climate risk heatmaps, significantly enhancing the bank’s understanding of exposure and reinforcing long-term resilience.
He added that the bank's three-year Climate Implementation Plan, aligned with Ghana’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), further solidifies the vision to ensure that the bank’s financing supports national climate adaptation priorities.
“Fidelity Bank is intentionally embedding climate risk screening into its credit assessments, with a particular focus on vulnerable sectors such as agriculture, infrastructure, and SMEs,” he stated.