'Cleantech Way'

BBVA Chair Carlos Torres Vila stated today that “our country is uniquely positioned to play a more relevant role in Europe.” To do so, he believes Spain needs larger banks that are capable of financing the investments needed in areas such as the energy transition, digitization, new technologies, and European autonomy. During his speech at the ‘Wake Up, Spain’ event, Carlos Torres Vila emphasized that growing across all business segments is one of BBVA’s six strategic priorities and will be a key driver of value and growth for the bank over the next five years. “Far from losing anything, Banco Sabadell’s business clients will gain BBVA as their best ally for growth,” he stressed.

The financial institution is developing an internal manual to give visibility to the reality of the people on the autism spectrum in the workplace and society. The goal is to make all professionals at the bank aware of this neurodivergence and promote a working environment that facilitates the integration of this group, makes the most of their strengths and understands the barriers they face.

Speaking in Barcelona on Monday, BBVA Chair Carlos Torres Vila pointed to the advantages that the potential integration of BBVA and Banco Sabadell would bring to customers, businesses, and society in Catalonia: “We want to double down on our commitment to Catalonia, to grow and contribute to the growth of this region and its business fabric,” he said during the Gran Encuentro Expansión Cataluña. He emphasized that BBVA combines the necessary scale to meet the investment demands of today’s macroeconomic context, while maintaining close ties with customers and strong local roots.

BBVA has adopted a data and AI governance strategy that lets it widen the use of artificial intelligence safely and responsibly.  The bank follows industry best practices and international regulations, keeps an inventory of its AI systems, and monitors them regularly to assess their accuracy, spot errors and ensure they remain current.

The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Basic Sciences has gone to Avelino Corma, John F. Hartwig and Helmut Schwarz for fundamental advances in the field of catalysis that have made it possible, in the words of the awards committee, to “control and accelerate chemical reactions” and obtain products across multiple industrial processes”, thus “improving efficiency and reducing energy consumption.” Their work has had a profound impact on sectors such as pharmaceuticals, energy and food.

For the fifth consecutive year, the bank will donate €300,000 to social organisations operating in the social and environmental spheres at its Annual General Meeting. The winning entities for 2025 are the Asociación Madrileña Para Ayuda del Recluso Abandonado, the Asindown Foundation, the Francisco Luzón Foundation, and the Scout Griebal Foundation.

BBVA has appointed Carlos Sanz-Pastor as Global Head of Internal Audit, replacing Joaquín Gortari Díez, who is leaving the bank following a successful career of 35 years. Meanwhile, Carlos Sanz-Pastor has been part of Internal Audit for more than two decades and, since 2015, was responsible for this unit’s strategy.

BBVA shareholders showed overwhelming support for all of the items proposed on the agenda at the 2025 Annual General Meeting, held this Friday. Quorum for the meeting reached 72.9 percent– an all-time high. The bank’s corporate management in 2024 received the support of 98.9 percent of the shareholders. Furthermore, the re-election as board members of BBVA Chair, Carlos Torres Vila, and CEO, Onur Genç, was backed by 97.4 percent and 99.1 percent of the votes, respectively.

On Friday, March 21st at 12:00 PM (CET), BBVA will hold its 2025 Annual General Meeting (AGM) at the Euskalduna Conference Center in Bilbao (Spain). BBVA is making it easier for its shareholders to participate in the AGM by offering a hybrid model, combining in-person attendance with the option of remote participation. To participate remotely, shareholders need to register in advance on the Remote Attendance Portal. Furthermore, the bank’s corporate website will broadcast the event via webcast.

Speaking at the Morgan Stanley European Financials Conference held in London on Tuesday, BBVA’s CEO explained that BBVA’s long-term profitability outlook is predicated on diversification, leading franchises and the successful pursuit of the bank’s strategy built around digitization and sustainability. Onur Genç also pointed to the geopolitical landscape: “Europe is at a turning point and will need further investment to become self-sufficient on various fronts. To finance this investment, he doubled down on the “need for larger, more profitable and efficient banks.” In this context, BBVA’s CEO underscored the importance of the combination with Banco Sabadell: “We expect to receive the CNMC’s decision within a matter of weeks. Once issued, the government will be able to review the combination, ultimately allowing the shareholders to make a decision.” For Onur Genç, “there is no doubt that Banco Sabadell shareholders will find a better ‘home’ at BBVA.”

BBVA’s Head of Retail Banking in Spain, Gonzalo Rodríguez, emphasized this Tuesday the unprecedented remedies that BBVA has presented to the National Commission on Markets and Competition (CNMC) to secure the approval of a business combination with Banco Sabadell in Phase 2 of the assessment procedure. He made these remarks during his speech at the Financial Observatory organized by El Español-Invertia, where he underscored that these remedies go beyond competition-related issues, focusing on three key pillars: financial inclusion, credit for SMEs, and territorial cohesion. Additionally, he stated, “In the regions where Banco Sabadell has a strong presence, BBVA is committed to maintaining that brand recognition and staying close to the business community and wider society, both through banking activities and foundations.”

The Central Bank of Morocco has given the green light for the indirect change in control of Banco Sabadell's branch in the country, as part of the transaction with BBVA. Therefore, BBVA now has all the authorizations needed from international regulators to complete the transaction.

‘Is our last chance?’ features eight documentaries that aim to draw attention to the urgent environmental and social impacts of climate change. From rising sea levels and increasing droughts to ecological devastation, the documentaries emphasize the pivotal role water plays in ecosystems, economies, and communities, and call for sustainable management of this vital resource. The screenings will take place at Salt Beyoğlu's Open Cinema from March 19 to April 19, 2025.

Cleantech is key to moving toward sustainability, although to continue growing it must overcome certain challenges, notably the €50 billion investment gap that currently exists in Europe until 2030, according to Cleantech for Europe. Public-private partnerships and the development of innovative solutions are essential to unlock its potential and ensure wider access to clean technologies.

Battery energy storage systems (BESS) have become a solution to prevent surpluses from being lost and to cover the intermittence of renewable energy. “We need energy storage solutions to make them permanent,” says researcher and electric battery expert Philippe Knauth in an interview for bbva.com. He also points out that the democratization of energy depends on “the combination of renewable energies and energy storage.”

Neustark, founded just five years ago, has developed a technology that captures carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and stores it within concrete, which is capable of retaining it for hundreds of thousands of years. This is a novel contribution to the fight againstclimate change.

Cleantech Way: download the BBVA and Ethic publication

A simple accounting identity shows that greenhouse gas emissions that build up in the atmosphere and cause climate change evolve according to GDP and emissions intensity per unit of GDP. Global GDP grew by 114% between 2000 and 2022, while emissions intensity fell by 33%.

Cleantech Way: download the BBVA and Ethic publication

Reducing carbon dioxide emissions is crucial to combating climate change, but achieving net zero will also require carbon capture technologies.

Cleantech Way: download the BBVA and Ethic publication

For Ismael Olmedo, CEO of Captoplastic, seeing clean, vibrant waterways is priceless —a value he cherishes more with age. He finds his company’s work particularly gratifying; they have developed technology to capture microplastics as small as one micron (0.001 mm), which are otherwise elusive and harmful to nature and health. We spoke with Olmedo to learn how this technology cancleanse ecosystems of these tiny pollutants and protect the environment.

Cleantech Way: download the BBVA and Ethic publication

The world is entering a new era of global competition, and cleantech manufacturing is at its heart. Reindustrialisation has brought industrial policy back into the mainstream, with China’s Made in China 2025 programme, and the American Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) investing billions of public funds to capture a share of a global market likely to reach $650 billion by 2030.

Cleantech Way: download the BBVA and Ethic publication

Clothing is much more than something to keep us warm: it is a powerful expression of our identity, culture and ideas. Brands are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of creating quality clothing that is not only attractive, but also sustainable, and that showcases their commitment to the planet and the future.

Cleantech Way: download the BBVA and Ethic publication

The global energy sector has been through extremely turbulent times in recent years. Many consumers around the world are feeling the bruises from high and volatile fossil fuel prices, especially for natural gas, which led to major pressures on the cost of living.

Cleantech Way: download the BBVA and Ethic publication

Sustainability inevitably means replacing fossil fuels —the main cause of global warming— with cleaner alternatives in terms of greenhouse gases. In this endless search for cleaner energy sources, green hydrogen emerges as a promising option, yet it remains far from decarbonizing sectors difficult to electrify, such as industry or heavy transport.

Cleantech Way: download the BBVA  and Ethic publication

Helios was established over six years ago as a project to produce oxygen on the Moon, but in its first steps it discovered by chance a responsible way to obtain iron as a by-product. It all started with a question. Jonathan Geifman —CEO of this Israeli tech company— and friends wanted to know why human beings had not returned to the Moon since the Apollo 17 mission in December 1972.

Cleantech Way: download the BBVA and Ethic publication

The European Union (EU), spurred by Spain and Portugal, stands poised to lead in clean technologies. Years ago, Europe’s pledge to reach net zero emissions by 2050 marked a visionary call to action. Since then, concerted efforts have advanced this goal.

Cleantech Way: download the BBVA and Ethic publication

Fusing the nuclei within atoms could offer humanity a clean and virtually boundless energysource, although various technical and economic challenges must first be overcome.

Cleantech Way: download the BBVA and Ethic publication

As a child, Ramya Swaminathan experienced first-hand the consequences of an unstable electrical grid: in India and the Philippines (where she grew up), power outages at the school were constant. Now, named in 2020 one of Business Insider’s list of 21 Rising Stars in clean energy, in addition to advising public agencies dedicated to the electric grid in the United States, Swaminathan advices Malta Inc., a startup that spun out from Google X that could be key for achieving a stable electrical network powered by 100% renewable energy.

Cleantech Way: download the BBVA and Ethic publication

Nearly a decade has passed since the signing of the historic Paris Agreement; a binding treaty that brought 195 countries together with a common goal: to slow the progression of climate change. The signatories committed to take the necessary steps to keep the Earth’s global temperature below 1.5˚C compared to pre-industrial levels. To this end, cutting CO2 emissions by approximately 45% from 2019 emission levels by 2030 was considered necessary as a preliminary step toward reaching net zero by 2050. One of the most significant challenges humanity has ever faced.

Cleantech Way: download the BBVA and Ethic publication

The expansion of renewable energy has made it increasingly less surprising to encounter a field of solar panels or find windmills among the mountains. The biggest challenge currently facing fossil fuel-free electrical systems is developing large-scale storage infrastructure so that renewable plants do not depend on the weather’s arbitrary behavior.

Cleantech Way: download the BBVA and Ethic publication

In Houston, BBVA Chair Carlos Torres Vila underscored the expected sharp rise in energy demand, especially electricity, and the enormous investment needed in infrastructure and innovation to address this challenge. “The growing demand for energy means European banks need greater scale to finance it,” he said while participating in CERAWeek 2025, the leading global event in the energy sector organized by S&P Global. The BBVA Chair also stressed the importance of capital markets and shareholders determining the results of the consolidation process underway in countries such as Spain, Italy and Germany.

The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Social Sciences has gone in this seventeenth edition to social psychologists Icek Ajzen (University of Massachusetts Amherst), Dolores Albarracín (University of Pennsylvania), Mahzarin Banaji (Harvard University), Anthony Greenwald (University of Washington) and Richard Petty (Ohio State University) for their innovative contributions that have revolutionized the attitude theory and its practical applications.

BBVA’s Chair, Carlos Torres Vila, took part this Friday in the annual forum of the Spanish Banking Association (AEB), where he underscored the need to make further progress toward European financial integration to create institutions with greater scale: “The return of mergers and acquisitions within Europe is a positive development,” he proclaimed. In his view, “it is important for investors and shareholders to have the final say on the consolidation processes currently taking place within Europe, as indeed should happen in a properly functioning capital market.” He also called for a regulatory environment that fosters competitiveness, in addition to financial stability: “Regulation must be an enabler of growth,” he explained at a round table discussion alongside the CEO of Banco Santander, Héctor Grisi, moderated by the president of the AEB, Alejandra Kindelán.

BBVA has received the green light from the Spanish Securities and Exchange Commission (CNMV) to provide custody and execution services for cryptoassets trading orders in Spain. After completing this formality, the bank is preparing to launch its offering for its retail customers, which will initially be available with bitcoin and ether.

The use of ChatGPT Enterprise is already saving BBVA employees an average of two hours of work per week. In tandem, the bank has been busy preparing new agents, built on artificial intelligence (AI), to help its managers provide better service to business customers. These were some of the examples cited by Álvaro Martín, head of Data for Business Clients and Sustainability at BBVA, at the Mobile World Congress, in showing that AI will entail a new transformation process spanning the entire Group. Meanwhile, Ignacio de Loyola Gil, head of the Digital Banking Business in Europe, explained BBVA’s strategy to reach new European markets thanks to the scalability of the digital platform developed in Spain.

The Bot Talent internal competition has demonstrated the creativity of BBVA employees to come up with innovative and secure uses of generative AI for their daily work. The bank will study the viability of three winning projects from Peru, Mexico and Spain, which propose using ChatGPT Enterprise to enhance customer service for sales agents, streamline the process of granting loans to SMEs, and detect official communications, supposedly from BBVA, that are actually hiding fraudulent messages to steal users’ financial data.

The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Music and Opera category has gone in this 17th edition to Toshio Hosakawa for “the extraordinary international reach of his work,” which “has built a bridge between the Japanese musical tradition and contemporary Western aesthetics”

BBVA and research provider BloombergNEF (BNEF) will work together to enhance and strengthen BBVA’s energy transition knowledge and expertise in clean technologies. The announcement was made during an event held in Madrid where the agreement and its objectives were presented.