Green Bonds: Improving their contribution to the low-carbon and climate resilient transition

The implementation of the new banking package (or Capital Requirements Directive package) that adopts the final parts of the international Basel 3 financial regulation is underway in the European Union. The European Banking Authority (EBA) along with the other European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) is mandated to develop technical standards that provide the framework to help financial institutions comply with the new regulatory rules. Key among these standards is the novel guidance on ESG risks which is expected to be finalised by the EBA in the coming months. This is an opportune moment to address weaknesses in banks’ risk management practices, particularly regarding the underestimation of stranded asset risks, a missing angle in current policy debates.  

Following the European elections on June 9, the EU is adapting to a new, more conservative, political reality. Yet despite changing political tides, a new EU leadership will still need to find a credible answer to how the continent is to reach climate neutrality by 2050. To understand how to get there, we need a clear understanding of the progress already made. This is where the European Climate Neutrality Observatory (ECNO) comes in.

Private financial institutions must rethink their approach to managing stranded asset risks. The current narrative on quantifying fossil fuel sector exposures within a limited scope of financial portfolios (mostly loans) largely underestimates potential stranding losses. As the low-carbon transition impacts all economic sectors, private financial institutions (FIs) must consider material transition-driven stranding risks within their overall transition risk management framework using a ‘whole of economy’ lens. Traditional risk management approaches are ill-suited to the methodological and quantification challenges of transition-driven stranding risks, so a flexible, dynamic, forward-looking approach is necessary. Strong, incentivising public policy coordinated with financial regulatory and supervisory impetus is necessary to preemptively identify, monitor and manage stranding losses on ‘assets-at-risk’ (i.e., potential stranded assets). The ECB finds that 40% of the total loan portfolio of euro area banks is exposed to energy-intensive sectors*, making them vulnerable to transition risks, including stranding. It is time for an urgent reframing of the stranded asset narrative to avoid significant financial losses (endangering financial stability) and direct orderly transition finance flows to retire or transform assets-at-risk before they become fully stranded.