Towards a climate-neutral Europe through green financing tools

adelphi developed a new online tool for the European Investment Bank: the Green Eligibility Checker. The new tool helps to assess green investment projects and their environmental impact.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) commits to a climate-neutral Europe by 2050 and aims to leverage EUR 1 trillion of green investments over the period 2021-2030. To reach these ambitious targets, financing volumes dedicated to green investments need to increase sharply and EIB partner institutions such as European commercial banks, national promotional banks or leasing entities must be mobilised. This in turn requires processes and tools that allow EIB’s partner financial intermediaries to effectively identify, validate and report on green investments on a large scale.

Boosting green finance through the Green Eligibility Checker

To support the large-scale deployment of funding to small, standardised green investments, the EIB commissioned an online tool for use by financial intermediaries: the Green Eligibility Checker. Launched in November 2021 at COP26, the Green Checker offers an effective way for financial intermediary staff to originate, appraise, and report on green investments financed through the EIB.

By indicating which investments meet the EIB green criteria, the Green Eligibility Checker contributes to building financial intermediary staff confidence and ability to inform their clients. When using the Green Eligibility Checker to appraise the financing of projects, tool users further benefit from EIB green eligibility validation as well as from the streamlined, guided processes embedded in the tool. The Green Checker also provides climate impact estimates and facilitates reporting to EIB thanks to the ‘Green Checker Results’ PDF report.

The Green Eligibility Checker supports financial intermediaries in originating, appraising, and reporting on green investments financed through the EIB’s intermediated debt products or through other financing sources.

Financial institutions need innovative solutions to first identify green investments in a simple way and then to bring green loans into the market on a broad scale accordingly. Our Green Eligibility Checker, which was developed primarily for employees of financial institutions, therefore aims to strike a good balance between ease of use and the validity of the estimated environmental impacts.

Dr. Svenja Hector - Senior Manager and Co-Lead Finance at adelphi