European Bank for Reconstruction and Development

Founded:
1991
Mission:
"To develop open and sustainable market economies in countries committed to, and applying, democratic principles."
Total assets:
$71 billion
Headquarters:
London, United Kingdom
Top five shareholders:
USA, Japan, France, Germany, Italy and the UK
Summary of Paris alignment assessment:
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is not yet Paris Aligned. It is making slow but steady progress towards aligning the various aspects of its operations to the Paris Agreement on climate change. Areas it should prioritise include fossil fuel exclusion policies and scaling up adaptation finance.  The EBRD also has the potential to lead the way in terms of transparency in financial intermediary sub-projects.

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

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Metric Summary
Promotion of green finance Paris aligned – The Bank works with a wide array of actors to support green finance, including innovative bond portfolios and market structures. 
Fossil to non-fossil energy finance ratio and scaling up climate finance Some progress – For every $1 the EBRD provides to fossil fuels, $2.1 goes to renewables & $0.4 goes to T&D between 2016-2019.
Nature based solutions Unaligned – Biodiversity safeguards in place but few commitments in other areas. 
Climate risk, resilience, and adaptation Paris aligned – Dedicated strategy and tools employed for climate risk management at project level. Climate strategy takes beyond-project approach to client resilience 
Overarching climate strategy Some progress – The comprehensive and institution wide application of the GET 2.1. approach ensures that EBRD has made significant steps toward being Paris aligned. The overarching strategy could be stronger on climate change.
Integration of climate mitigation and resilience in key sectoral strategies Some progress – Overall climate relatively well integrated in water, cities and transport sectoral strategies, more progress needed in mitigation and resilience in energy. 
Institutional leadership Paris aligned The Bank is a leader in energy efficiency and finance tracking, and regularly shares information with peers. 
Energy access and fuel poverty Not available – Not relevant to EBRD region at present, but if EBRD were to expand into sub-Saharan Africa this could change.
Energy efficiency strategy, standards and investment Paris aligned – Robust energy efficiency standards across transport, buildings and financial intermediaries and good general integration of energy efficiency principles.
Fossil fuel exclusion policies Some progress – Exclusion of coal and upstream oil and gas.  Downstream oil and gas subject to Paris alignment test
Greenhouse gas accounting and reduction Some progress – The EBRD covers a wide range of sectors with its GHG tracking but has no absolute emissions target for its GHG. 
Shadow carbon pricing Paris aligned – Prices align with the High-Level Commission on Carbon Prices and are applied to all projects above the emission threshold.  
Country level work Some progress – Country Strategies are guided by NDCs and the Green Economy Transition Approach appears to include national action plans and decarbonisation pathway development. 
Technical assistance for implementing Paris goals Some progress – The EBRD supports members in NDC implementation and “updating” through its support programme and GET approach, but it is unclear if it supports increased ambition. 
Transparency of climate finance data Some progress – Transparency of financial intermediary lending needs improving.

Recommendations

  • EBRD should bring forward its date for being Paris aligned. We understand it will currently make a decision no later than 2022 on Paris alignment. The bank should commit to be Paris aligned in 2022 at the latest, rather than for a decision to be made then.  
  • The EBRD should aim to increase its climate adaptation finance. It currently stands at 4% of total operations. 
  • Supporting financial intermediaries and clients achieve Paris alignment is essential. One of the key challenges remaining within the “greening of the EBRD” is how the EBRD helps its clients and intermediaries – often public and private banks – to themselves also go through a “greening” or “Paris Agreement alignment” process. 
  • The EBRD should look to match the ambition of the EIB in committing to rule out finance to unabated fossil fuel projects from the end of 2021. This can be achieved by bringing forward the EBRD Energy Sector Strategy review and reviewing the bank’s policy on gas in particular.

Leadership area

EBRD is a leader in energy efficiency, where it has high standards in transport and buildings energy efficiency standards and in the energy savings required of its financial intermediaries. We recommend that many other public banks should look to EBRD and its innovative financial instruments in this space as a best practice in this area.

Last updated: November 2020.

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