2024 has been a year of progress for Triodos Bank in many areas. Despite the turbulence in the world around us, ranging from geo-political conflicts to climate-related natural disasters, shifting policies and changing political preferences, we maintained our course in values-based banking, proving that solid financial performance, good risk management and positive impact can go hand in hand. We adhered to these principles and received support from our stakeholders, making notable progress in enhancing the bank's future resilience.
This certainly includes the decision to pursue a listing on Euronext, which has been strongly endorsed by our Depository Receipt (DR) Holders, as well as a package of measures offered to our DR Holders. I appreciate the constructive approach of Stichting Certificaathouders Triodos Bank (SCTB) to reach this outcome, which intends to strike the right balance between addressing the dissatisfaction amongst DR Holders regarding the suspension and restoration of tradability and safeguarding our capacity to achieve our positive impact goals in the interest of all stakeholders.
Over the past year, we continued to support the transition to a society that allows people to live prosperous lives on a thriving planet by focusing our business on five themes: energy, food, resources, society and wellbeing. We pursue these transitions by financing innovative projects. The steady growth of our targeted lending to social entrepreneurs, conscious mortgage borrowers and our positive impact investments, enabled us to finance change and allow our customers and investors to consciously use their money for positive change.
A telling example of our frontrunner role in this respect is our ambition to provide EUR 500 million in investments, loans and contributions to the Nature-based Solutions sector between 2020 and 2030 as part of our biodiversity targets. Announced in 2024, this initiative underscores our dedication to addressing the urgent need for nature restoration and conservation, removing CO2e emissions from the atmosphere and providing societal benefits.
We maintained our course in values-based banking, proving that solid financial performance, good risk management and positive impact can go hand in hand.
Reducing CO2 emissions remains essential to counter the devastating effects of the current climate crisis. This effort involves companies, governments and individuals. While we do not finance fossil fuels, we do recognise our role in reducing CO2 emissions from all loans and investments we provide. In 2021, we published our target to become net-zero in 2035, based on the available data, methodologies and regulatory landscape at that time. Between 2020 and 2024 our financed emissions reduced significantly (by 28%). However, it has become clear that, due to new insights and guidelines on dealing with permanent neutralisation, we can no longer claim to be aiming to achieve net-zero by 2035, assuming this would require a 90% reduction in all our emissions by 2035 and permanent neutralisation of the remaining 10% of emissions. In our original climate action plan we had assumed there would be no limit on neutralisation. No longer making this claim does not change anything about the actions to tackle climate change that we have already committed to, and we have even sharpened our emission reduction targets and actions.
This development signals one of the dilemmas we face as a frontrunner: taking a clear stance and speaking out about our ambitions to set direction at an early stage versus the risk of being overtaken at a later stage by new regulation or standards, and being forced to redefine our measurable targets. We will stay committed to our frontrunner role, take clear stances and speak up about our ambitions, whilst acknowledging the risk that we might have to adjust course at a later stage to comply with new regulation or standards. We will continue to report transparently about any adjustments we might have to make.
We remain firmly committed to financing climate solutions and reducing emissions in collaboration with our customers. As a testament to this, we were recognised in 2024, for the eighth consecutive time, as the leading arranger of clean energy project finance worldwide. With the same dedication, we financed more projects in education and childcare in 2024 as part of our societal and wellbeing transition themes.
In 2024, we also continued our advocacy work for system change and to influence the financial sector, striving for more sustainability, transparency and diversity in business models. For the second year in a row, we worked with a group of organisations to create a proposal for the European Commission to develop a Social Investment Framework that defines and facilitates social investments. And we were the first bank in the world to sign the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty and, in the Netherlands, we were one of the initiators of the citizens' initiative Farewell to Fossil Fuels (Afscheid van Fossiel), an appeal to the House of Representatives to truly start working on phasing out fossil fuels. We are grateful for the support of more than 42,500 Dutch citizens, a great source of inspiration to continue our advocacy activities.
Solid financial performance is essential to enable our pursuit of positive impact. In 2024, we again delivered solid operating financial results. Due to a provision of EUR 101 million before tax, we incurred a small net loss of EUR 3.0 million. This provision covers the anticipated costs of the settlement offer to eligible DR Holders announced on 10 January 2025. Triodos Bank continues to be well capitalised with all relevant ratios well above the required regulatory requirements. We took important steps forward in our capital transition with approval from our DR Holders to pursue a listing on Euronext and to adjust the nominal value of our shares. We also successfully issued Green Bonds up to an amount of EUR 350 million in order to meet our MREL requirements.
Regarding our operating model transition, we made good steps forward in further integrating, harmonising and standardising our activities with our new Triodos Operating Model. Building on this, we will increase our focus on further simplification of our activities, digitalisation and exploration of possible partnerships. An example of such a strategic partnership is the collaboration between Triodos Investment Management and Fondaction, a Canadian pension fund, announced earlier in 2024.
Building upon the progress made with the capital, operating model and leadership transitions, going forward we will further sharpen our strategic focus, in which our Dutch operations will take centre stage. We will further optimise our operations group-wide through strict capital management and additional choices regarding product-market combinations. We aim to optimally deploy our scarce resources on precisely those activities that will enable us to achieve focused growth and the best possible results, both in terms of positive impact and financially.
During this ongoing process of sharpening our strategic focus and enhancing the bank's future resilience, we will face dilemmas in carefully balancing the costs and investments needed to achieve the best possible results in the longer term, whilst living up to the expectations of all stakeholders to continue to deliver solid financial results and positive impact in the shorter term. I am confident we can manage these dilemmas adequately and we will report transparently about the choices we make and the underlying reasons.
Looking ahead, we will continue to develop our finance change, change finance approach around our five transition themes to remain a frontrunner. With the same dedication and focus, we will continue our own transition and make the required choices to live up to the expectations of our stakeholders. In conclusion, I would like to acknowledge the collective efforts of all our stakeholders, especially our customers, co-workers and investors. Together we prove day in, day out that values-based banking does make a tangible difference in the pursuit of positive impact. As I prepare to step down as CEO, I am confident that Triodos Bank is well placed to continue to thrive and lead the way in values-based banking. I look forward to staying part of that journey as a customer and investor.
On behalf of the Executive Board,
Jeroen Rijpkema