ECB to publish first detailed carbon footprint
Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/ecb-publish-first-detailed-carbon-footprint-2023-03-22/
Author: Marc Jones
The European Central Bank and euro zone national central banks will publish their first detailed carbon footprints in the coming days, showing the environmental impact of years of crisis-fighting. The ECB and the 20 countries that use the single European currency have spent trillions of euros during years of rolling crises buying bonds, including those of companies that are heavy polluters. "We will be disclosing the (ECB and Eurosystem) carbon footprint," Clara Raposo, a vice governor at Portugal's national central bank, told a sustainable policy conference hosted by the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum. Carbon footprints measure the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere as a result of everyday activities. The ECB is trying to take a more active role in fighting climate change. It runs climate stress tests on the euro zone's commercial banks and has been increasing the penalties - or haircuts, in banking jargon - charged on polluting companies' bonds used as collateral to get ECB funding. Earlier this year, sustainable finance thinktank Anthropocene Fixed Income Institute (AFII) estimated the ECB could cut the carbon footprint of its corporate bond holdings by 87% if it sold 48 billion euros of debt from 25 top polluters. Leading ECB policymaker Isabel Schnabel has said bank needs to consider shifting its portfolios towards greener companies' debt.