The IATE term of the week is green finance. ‘Financing for projects or activities with beneficial environmental outcomes’ is the definition that we can find in the institutional term base IATE.
Green finance is a term with an increasing importance due to the climate crisis, but especially since the Paris agreement (COP 21) on the struggle against climate change and the COP 24. We can notice the term green in many environmental concepts recently as it refers to the colour of plants. Many times, you can replace it with the term sustainable; in this case, it is possible to find the equivalent sustainable finance.
Green finance has several objectives: protect the climate, but also the biodiversity and limit the water pollution among other things. It consists in investing in projects to limit the carbon footprint and facilitate resilience of the people and goods who face difficulties related to climate change.
Green finance refers to any financial service that relies on other factors than financing. For instance, we can consider it is sustainable finance when the people in charge of an investment project take into account the environmental and social impact of the operation.
Sources:
Council-EN based on: Lindenberg, N. Definition of green finance, German Development Institute 2014 https://www.die-gdi.de/uploads/media/Lindenberg_Definition_green_finance.pdf
Luxembourgforfinance ‘agency for the development of the Financial Centre’, ‘Financial Centre, showing the way to a greener economy’ https://www.luxembourgforfinance.com/en/financial-centre/sustainable-finance/
PWC Luxembourg, ‘CEO’s agenda’, ‘Sustainability’, ‘Sustainable finance’ https://www.pwc.lu/en/sustainability-performance-strategy/sustainable-finance.html
Delano.lu, Natalie A. Gerhardstein, October 8, 2019 ‘Bridging the green finance gap’, https://delano.lu/d/detail/news/bridging-green-finance-gap/208092
IATE, ‘green finance’ https://iate.europa.eu/entry/result/3568056/en
Association des Banques et Banquiers Luxembourg, Bourse de Luxembourg, ‘green finance trends 2019’ https://www.abbl.lu/2018/12/27/green-finance-trends-2019/
Written by TermCoord trainee.