Finance climate protection – use market forces

“As important as sustainable finance is to the private banks, our hopes have unfortunately not been fulfilled. With the present compromise, the EU has failed to present clear-cut, uniform classification criteria for sustainable financial products,” said Christian Ossig, the Association of German Banks’ chief executive, commenting on the agreement by the EU institutions on a “sustainable investment” classification.

“And the classification system is, in our view, the key building block for a sustainable finance regime in Europe. Such criteria will only gain acceptance if financial market players and industrial companies can apply them easily in practice. In its excessive bureaucracy, the EU regulation now adopted unfortunately sets what we see as the wrong priorities here. Yet the private banks remain ready to play their part in financing climate protection.”