As a seasoned corporate banker, at some point Eva Meyer was no longer satisfied with financial analysis figures. Around ten years ago, she came into contact with ESG for the first time. "Back then, we started to take sustainable criteria into account in our lending business. BNP Paribas was one of the major international banks that had a coal policy early on, for example," recalls Meyer, who joined the German unit of the major French bank in 2014.

Meyer (born in 1985) came from Commerzbank at the time and was a Senior Relationship Manager at BNP, where she was responsible for looking after corporate customers – until she decided to devote herself entirely to green issues in the banking business.

Her curriculum vitae did not suggest this; she completed a dual education at the Baden-Württemberg University of Applied Sciences and holds a degree in business administration. During her time at Commerzbank, she completed a Master's degree at the FOM University of Applied Sciences for Economics & Management.

Meyer has been Head of ESG at BNP in Frankfurt for three years. As a Center of Expertise, her 13-strong Sustainable Business Team is responsible for all of the Group's business units, both internally and when advising clients. Meyer also manages the bank's sustainability strategy in Germany.

"ESG and sustainability are exciting because they are strategic issues," says Meyer. Sustainability analysis has enriched the banking business with an important building block. "Sustainability should be a normal part of business today. We need to move away from looking at the topic detached from the core business." In order to make progress with ESG, a lot of hard work and perseverance is needed. There is a lot to do in the transition in particular.

"You can achieve the greatest impact if you get companies from the real economy to become sustainable. Nobody gains anything by focusing exclusively on the green taxonomy."

ESG is not possible without regulation, but not everything is good. "The new Green Asset Ratio (GAR) that banks have to report is not very helpful. The concept is very static and does not reflect the transformation," says Meyer. Due to the narrow focus, the informative value is rather low, which is why investors hardly pay attention to the GAR.

In Meyer's view, regulation can be counterproductive. "There is a certain ESG fatigue," she occasionally hears from contacts in the market. This is mainly due to the complexity. "But that shouldn't stop us from pushing ahead with the topic. The aim should be to turn the global wheel when it comes to ESG." In this context, Meyer has high hopes for the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) and other international standards.