| Website | http://www.societegenerale.com/ |
| Headquarters |
29, boulevard Haussmann
75009 Paris
France
|
| CEO/chair |
Slawomir Krupa Chief Executive Officer |
| Supervisor | |
| Ownership |
listed on NYSE
Société Générale's shareholder structure can be accessed here. |
Société Générale ("SocGen") is one of the oldest banks in France, dating back to 1864. The original name was Société Générale pour favoriser le développement du commerce et de l'industrie en France. Société Générale offers retail and specialised financial services to 30 million customers in France and in 48 countries worldwide. In addition it provides services to companies, investors and private clients. Its businesses include retail, private, investment and corporate banking; insurance and investment management.
Société Générale's most important sustainability commitments can be found at the website sections listed below.
Société Générale is linked to a number of companies and projects that BankTrack considers controversial (so called Dodgy Deals), e.g. as a current or past financier or through an expression of interest. The profiles below provide more details on the nature of Société Générale's link to these deals.
Société Générale has not established any process or mechanism open to individuals and communities to raise a complaint related to human rights issues. However, employees can report breaches of ethical standards via the bank's whistleblowing channel. Other stakeholders may instead raise complaints via the OECD National Contact Points (see OECD Watch guidance).
Société Générale is an Equator Principles signatory. While the Equator Principles have no official grievance mechanism, complaints relating to this bank's financing of Equator Principles projects can be filed through our own website www.equator-complaints.org.
This page evaluates Société Générale's responses to instances of alleged human rights violations linked to its finance, raised by civil society organisations. It is not intended to be exhaustive, but covers selected impacts raised by BankTrack and other civil society partners since 2016. For the full scoring methodology, see here. For more information about BankTrack's evaluation of bank responses to human rights impacts, see the 2021 report "Actions speak louder: assessing bank responses to human rights violations".
The 2025 Banking on Climate Chaos report showed that Société Générale provided $53.9 bn in financing to the fossil fuel industry between 2021 and 2024. In 2024 only, Société Générale provided $11.7 bn, including $4.7 bn for oil, gas and coal companies expanding fossil fuels. Find further details on Société Générale's fossil fuel portfolio and how it compares to other large banks globally on the Banking on Climate Chaos website below.
Partner organisation Reclaim Finance tracks the coal, oil and gas policies of financial institutions, including banks, in their Coal Policy Tool (CPT) and the Oil and Gas Policy Tracker (OGPT). BankTrack works closely with Reclaim Finance and endorses their policy assessments. Find further details on their assessment of Société Générale’s fossil fuel policy below.
The purpose of the False Solutions Tracker is to give a clear overview of energy technologies that fall under banks' individual sustainable finance commitments. The tracker lists 11 energy technologies that are usually associated with the energy transition and the decarbonisation of the economy. These technologies are defined here and classified in three categories:
Real solutions: Technologies that deliver on a Just Transition towards Energy Democracy. BankTrack considers these technologies as real solutions only if and when they do deliver Energy Democracy.
Solutions under strict conditions: Energy technologies that could be real solutions if they deliver on a Just Transition towards Energy Democracy but that could also be false solutions. This is the case of hydrogen and hydropower. On one hand, fossil-free and green hydrogen could be a real solution under certain conditions. However, fossil-based hydrogen and nuclear hydrogen are always false solutions. On the other hand, hydropower lifespan extension could also be a real solution under strict conditions while hydropower expansion is a false solution.
False solutions: Energy technologies that are not aligned with a just transition towards Energy Democracy.
For each one of the 11 energy technologies, the tracker indicates if it is included in bank's individual sustainable finance commitments:
For Real solutions:
For solutions under strict conditions and for false solutions:
BankTrack assessed Société Générale in its 2024 Global Human Rights Benchmark, where it achieved 6.5 points out of 15 and was ranked as a “follower”.
The bank scored 0.5 out of 3 points on the new “specific rights indicators”, which assess how banks address human rights defenders, Indigenous Peoples’ right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent and environmental rights in their policies and practices.
In addition, Société Générale scored 0.38 out of 3 on how it responds to alleged human rights violations linked to its finance, which were raised by civil society organisations. More information is detailed in the “Accountability” section of this profile.
The table below shows BankTrack's assessment of how Société Générale has implemented the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Please click on 'expand all details' and 'explanation' for further information on the methodology.
Our policy assessments are always a work in progress. We very much welcome any feedback, especially from banks included in the assessments. Please get in touch at humanrights@banktrack.org.
Société Générale’s policies for forest-risk sectors (beef, soy, palm oil, pulp and paper, rubber and timber) have been assessed by the Forests & Finance coalition, achieving an overall score of 5.4 out of 10 and ranking it as a front runner. Société Générale achieved a score of 0 out of 10 specifically for its policies related to the beef sector and 5.8 out of 10 for its policies related to the palm oil sector.
Between 2016 and 2022, Société Générale provided USD 479 million in credit to companies operating in these forest-risk sectors and held investments amounting to USD 1 million as of 2022.
BankTrack has also assessed Société Générale’s policies related to the wood biomass sector and found that biomass is not mentioned in its policies and no safeguards or exclusions are in place for wood biomass. For more information, see the links below.
A bank can obtain a total of 10 points for the quality of its policies. The total score is based on their scores per sector, weighted against their financing and investment for each sector. For further details on this see here. Based on their overall score, banks are then classified as Laggards, Followers, Front runners or Leaders, as follows:
A bank can obtain a total of 10 points for the quality of its beef policy. The total score is based on their scores per sector, weighted against their financing and investment for each sector. For further details on this see here. Based on their overall score, banks are then classified as Laggards, Followers, Front runners or Leaders, as follows:
A bank can obtain a total of 10 points for the quality of its palm oil policy. The total score is based on their scores per sector, weighted against their financing and investment for each sector. For further details on this see here. Based on their overall score, banks are then classified as Laggards, Followers, Front runners or Leaders, as follows:
Société Générale is a member of the Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) and has therefore committed to reduce its financed emissions to net zero by 2050; within 18 months of joining the alliance set interim targets for 2030 (or sooner) for high emission priority sectors, and within 36 months set further sector targets; set new intermediary targets every 5 years from 2030 onwards; annually publish data on emissions and progress against a transition strategy including climate-related sectoral policies; and take a robust approach to the role of offsets in transition plans. BankTrack track's implementation of these commitments in the NZBA compliance tracker.
BankTrack is keeping track of the public response of Société Générale to Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine. Société Générale did not publicly condemn the war. As of February 2022, we considered the bank's exposure to Russia as large with over $21bn in financial assets. Société Générale has since exited Russia. For further details, see the table linked below.
Société Générale is a member of the Sustainable Steel Principles. This means it has committed to measuring and disclosing its steel-related financed emissions on an annual basis, and reporting its alignment with the International Energy Agency’s Net Zero by 2050 pathway for the steel industry.
As part of the Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), Société Générale is required to set interim targets for 2030 for high emission priority sectors. For Société Générale, this includes its lending to the steel sector. You can see Société Générale’s iron and steel decarbonisation targets, and its progress towards meeting them in our NZBA steel targets compliance tracker:
Partner organisation Reclaim Finance’s 2023 report on metallurgical coal financing showed that Société Générale provided US$ 3.4 billion in loans and underwriting to developers of new metallurgical coal between 2016 and 2022. Find further details on Société Générale’s metallurgical coal financing and and how it compares to other large banks globally in the report.
Reclaim Finance tracks the metallurgical coal policies of financial institutions, including banks, in their Coal Policy Tool. BankTrack works closely with Reclaim Finance and endorses their policy assessments. Find further details on their assessment of Société Générale’s metallurgical coal policy below.
According to a report by Reclaim Finance, between 2016 and June 2023, Société Générale provided $5.9 billion in finance to the fossil-steel industry, making it the 22nd largest financier worldwide. Find further details on Société Générale's steel financing and how it compares to other large banks globally in the report.
