International Finance Corporation

Level of climate finance transparency

This page is part of the E3G Public Bank Climate Tracker Matrix, our tool to help you assess the Paris alignment of public banks, MDBs and DFIs.

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Paris alignmentReasoning
Some progressSubmitted information to the OECD for all years apart from 2018. Financial intermediary lending transparency needs improving.
Climate Finance DataThe IFC has not submitted information to the OECD for 2018 but has reported in all other years.
Financial intermediary lendingCategory A and some category B sub-projects will be disclosed. Expected to cover 70% of IFCs annual financial intermediary programme.
TCFD ReportingThe IFC conducts TCFD reporting. Greater portfolio data disclosure is needed.

 

Transparency of climate finance data

The IFC has not submitted its project level data to the OECD-DAC (Development Assistance Committee) climate-related development finance database in 2018 but has reported for other years. Furthermore, in 2016 it did not provide a sectoral tag for any of the projects it submitted. The IFC does not release the underlying data behind its submission to the joint MDB report.

Recommendation: We recommend that all MDBs consider disclosing their operations against a version of the EU Sustainable Finance Taxonomy that has been adapted for the region the bank operates in. This is because it is science based and is reviewed regularly to reflect changes in technology and science. 

Transparency of financial intermediary lending

IFC has been piloting the voluntary disclosure of high-risk sub-projects from financial intermediary clients and in March 2020 the bank committed to disclose sub-projects that would be considered Category A or relevant Category B sub-loans according to IFC performance standards. This covers new equity investments in commercial banks including with existing clients, new senior bonds issued by commercial banks and where IFC is the sole investor and senior loans to commercial banks. For this group, the IFC will require them to annually report the name, location and sector for subprojects. The IFC expects this to capture more than 70% of its annual intermediary programme.

In 2017, IFC stated that all sub-projects related to private equity funds since 2012 are now on its Disclosure Portal. Private equity funds represent about 11% of IFC’s financial intermediary portfolio.

All IFC investments in the real estate sector with emissions over 25,000 tCO2eq/y disclose their project-level environmental and social information through IFC’s website for the Environmental and Social Review Summary (Information from IFC).

In September 2020, the IFC  unveiled its new approach to greening equity investments in financial institutions. The IFC says it will end equity investments in financial institutions that do not have a plan to phase out investments in coal-related activities. The “30 by 30 Zero Program” aims to help the banking sector increase climate-related lending to 30 percent and reduce their exposure to coal related projects to zero by 2030.

TCFD Reporting

The IFC does conduct TCFD Reporting. This section assesses what level of detail is disclosed within the 2020 TCFD report.

E3G has developed a list of areas under each TCFD category based upon the disclosure of the three MDBs who do TCFD reporting (EBRD, IFC and EIB). This allows a direct comparison between where each MDB is providing greater disclosure compared to their peers in certain areas.

Of these MDBs, the IFC provides the least level of detail within its disclosure. The IFC should focus on its Risk Management and Metrics disclosure in future TCFD reports. 

Last Update: May 2022

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