Perigon Partners · Annual Research

Banking Barometer.
Est. 2023.

Three years of independent benchmarking across 57+ UK and Irish financial institutions. The only research delving into sustainability and strategic performance across UK banks, building societies and fintechs of all sizes.

3 Annual editions
57+ Institutions assessed
65% Have a net zero target
1 in 4 Don't mention AI
90% Full service banks have a transition plan
About the research

Rigorous and independent.

The Banking Barometer is Perigon Partners' annual, independent assessment of sustainability and strategic reporting across UK and Irish financial services. Our cohort spans the full breadth of the sector: from small fintechs to the largest full service banks, from building societies to specialist and challenger banks.

The primary purpose of the research is to provide leaders and sustainability teams in UK financial services with impartial, reliable, market-wide benchmarking data to support planning, prioritisation and board engagement. A secondary purpose was added from 2025: providing insights to leaders and strategy teams on the relative robustness of their strategic frameworks and approach to AI.

Source material

Annual reports, standalone sustainability and climate reports, supplementary web disclosures. All publicly available.

Assessment window

Latest, publicly available full-year disclosures assessed June to July for Barometer publication in August each year.

Cohort consistency

Cohort expanded to include more smaller institutions in 2024. Other coverage changes reflect M&A activity.

AI-assisted analysis

From 2025, AI agents with human-in-the-loop review used for sentiment analysis, strategy scoring and target tracking.

Three-year trends · 2023 to 2025

What the data shows across three editions.

In contrast to what media headlines might suggest, Perigon's Barometer shows a consistent widening and maturing of sustainability targets and plans since 2023.

21
↑ More than doubled
Banks with a transition plan in 2025, up from 9 in 2024 and near-zero in 2023.
90%
↑ From near-zero in 2023
Full service banks now have a climate transition plan.
65%
↑ Growing and more credible
Have a confirmed net zero target in 2025. 83% of those target 2050.
49%
↑ +16 percentage points
Now reporting financed emissions, up from 33% in 2023. Becoming a hygiene factor.
31%
→ No movement
Have undertaken a materiality assessment; consistent across all years.
16%
→ New in 2025
Reference AI at a strategic or embedded level. 84% are still essentially watching.
Emissions reporting coverage · % of cohort, 2023–2025
Three scope categories tracked annually. Scope 1&2 near-universal; financed emissions gaining ground. Operational Scope 3 excludes financed emissions (Scope 3.15).
The editions

Three years. Three reports.

Each edition builds on the last. Explore the full findings, year by year.

Latest edition
2025
Typically FY2024 · 57 institutions
Cohort size57 institutions
Net zero targets65% (37 banks)
Transition plans37% (21 banks)
Reporting financed emissions49%
Materiality assessed31%
Read the 2025 Barometer
Second edition
2024
Typically FY2023 · 61 institutions
Cohort size61 institutions
Net zero targets34 banks
Transition plans13% (8 banks)
Reporting financed emissions52%
Materiality assessed30%
Read the 2024 Barometer
First edition
2023
Typically FY2022 · 51 institutions
Cohort size51 institutions
Net zero targets–
Transition plans–
Reporting financed emissions33%
Materiality assessed31% (16 banks)
Read the 2023 Barometer
Common questions

What people want to know.

The Banking Barometer is Perigon Partners' annual, independent benchmark of sustainability, climate and strategic reporting across UK and Irish financial institutions. Published since 2023, it analyses public disclosures from annual reports, covering materiality, ESG strategy, GHG emissions, climate targets, and (from 2025) business strategy quality and AI maturity. It is the only benchmark spanning the full breadth of the UK banking sector: from small fintechs to the largest full service banks, from building societies to specialist and challenger banks.
Details of which institutions were included can be found in each year's report. In 2025, the following 57 institutions were included:

AIB
Aldermore Bank
Allica Bank
Arbuthnot Group
Bank of Ireland
Barclays Group
Bath Building Society
Beverley Building Society
British Business Bank
C. Hoare & Co
Cambridge and Counties Bank
Cambridge Building Society
Castle Trust Bank
Charity Bank
Chetwood Financial
Coventry Building Society
Cynergy Bank
Darlington Building Society
Dudley Building Society
Earl Shilton Building Society
Ecology Building Society
Funding Circle
Gatehouse Bank
Hampden & Co.
Harpenden Building Society
HSBC
Leeds Building Society
Lloyds Banking Group
Melton Building Society
Metro Bank
Monument Bank
Monzo
Nationwide
NatWest Group
Newcastle Building Society
OakNorth Bank Plc
One Savings Bank
Paragon Bank
Penrith Building Society
Permanent TSB
Recognise Bank
Redwood Bank
Revolut
Santander UK
Secure Trust Bank
Shawbrook Bank
Skipton Building Society
Starling
Suffolk Building Society
Tandem Bank
TSB
United Trust Bank
Vanquis Bank
Vida Bank
Weatherbys
Yorkshire Building Society
Zopa
65% of the 57-institution cohort: 37 banks have a confirmed net zero target as of FY2024. 83% target 2050. This is up from 34 institutions in FY2023. Despite media narratives of retreat, Perigon's data shows the sector is making net positive progress on climate targets.
37% (21 of 57) had published a climate transition plan by FY2024, more than doubling from 9 the prior year. 90% of full service banks now have a plan. Building societies lag significantly. In 2023, the figure was near-zero.
The 2025 Barometer scored AI maturity, based on the mentions within the annual report, on a six-level scale (0=Absent to 5=GenAI Native). 1 in 4 banks made no mention of AI in their annual report. Only 9 banks' disclosures (16%) suggested they were at Level 3 or above and no banks' disclosures suggested they were yet at Level 5. Publicly listed institutions were 17.6x more likely to score higher than member-owned building societies.
You are free to use the statistics and findings in Perigon's Banking Barometer internally within your organisation. Please cite "Banking Barometer [year] by Perigon Partners Ltd.". If you would like to use any of the findings externally, for example on LinkedIn, please cite as above and provide a link to this web page (https://www.perigonpartners.co.uk/research-and-tools/banking-barometer).
As all the data is from public sources, we are happy to provide a copy of it in Excel or CSV format upon request. We can also provide bespoke benchmarking of your institution against its peer group(s), for example against institutions of a similar size, ownership structure or sub-sector.