The European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Environment Agency (EEA) will strengthen collaboration to promote climate action, environmental sustainability, and sustainable finance. In a new agreement, the EIB and the EEA pledged deeper cooperation in technical areas including biodiversity, climate adaptation, circular economy, and urban sustainability.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) will allow the EIB to use the EEA’s expertise on data and modelling when evaluating projects and measuring impact of the Bank’s financing. For its part, the EEA will be able to integrate the EIB’s sustainable finance expertise in way that makes European environmental data more useful to the broader financial community.
“We need the best available data and knowledge to address the triple planetary crisis of biodiversity, climate change and pollution,” EIB Vice-President Ambroise Fayolle said. “That’s why we are reinforcing our partnership with the European Environment Agency. We will work on methodologies and technical approaches that will help to enhance the impact of our projects to accelerate the green transition worldwide.”
“Scaling up and re-orienting financial flows in a more sustainable direction is a pre-requisite for meeting our environment, climate and sustainability objectives under the European Green Deal. Enhanced co-operation between the European Environment Agency and the European Investment Bank will boost our common knowledge base across a wide spectrum of areas to further support the transition towards a more sustainable and competitive European economy,” said EEA Executive Director Leena Ylä-Mononen.
Background information
The European Investment Bank (EIB) is the long-term lending institution of the European Union owned by its Member States. It is active in more than 160 countries and makes long-term finance available for sound investment in order to contribute towards EU policy goals.
The EIB Group has consolidated its role as “The Climate Bank”. The EIB Group Climate Bank Roadmap 2021-2025 lays out how the EIB Group supports the European Green Deal and a just transition to low-carbon, climate-resilient and environmentally sustainable development. Consolidating our role as the EU Climate Bank is one of the eight key priorities in the EIB Group’s 2024-2027 Strategic Roadmap. In 2021, the EIB Group became the first MDB to apply Paris alignment criteria to all its new financing operations. In 2023, the EIB Group achieved a record year of green finance with €49 billion: this is more than 50% of our total financing activities. The mid-term review of our Climate Bank Roadmap has confirmed that the EIB Group is on track to achieve the goal of supporting €1 trillion of green financing in this decade.
The EEA is an agency of the European Union that delivers knowledge and data to support Europe's environment and climate goals. In collaboration with its partner network, Eionet, the EEA informs decision-makers and the public about the state of Europe’s environment, climate change and wider sustainability issues.
This article was first published on 18 October by the European Investment Bank.
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