WSBI ESBG
Sustainable Finance
WSBI-ESBG member banks recognise that climate change is one of the main collective hazards ever experienced worldwide.
Move towards sustainable finance
Sustainable finance supports economic growth while reducing pressures on the environment.
It tackles pollution and focuses on green-house gas emissions by minimising waste and improving efficiency in the use of natural resources.
It is the provision of finance to investments taking into account environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations. The savings and retail banking model creates growth and jobs as it finances SMEs – the EU engines of growth. They also play a role in opening their network to everyone, and help to educate citizens in the region in which they operate.

Our position on Sustainable Finance
Regulatory actions in the financial sector must prioritize the completion and implementation of the regulation developed in the 2018 Sustainable Finance Action Plan and what is provided in the EU Green Deal and the upcoming Renewed Sustainable Finance Strategy. Overlaps and misalignments between regulations as well as misalignments in implementation deadlines of interdependent regulations should be avoided.
Our latest content on financial inclusion Sustainable Finance
October 10, 2020
Prudential treatment of assets and risk management
ESBG believes that the green supporting factor should be looked at in careful detail in order to ensure that it is a secure tool. The SME supporting factor was established after a lot of research and…
October 10, 2020
EU Ecolabel for financial products
ESBG fully supports the development of a voluntary label to increase transparency for consumers on sustainability. However, regulators should firstly observe market developments and make sure that an…
October 10, 2020
EU Taxonomy
The specificities of retail banking should be taken into account in the framework in order to make sure that the taxonomy works for all types of economic activities, such as SME lending, energy…
October 10, 2020
Disclosures and reporting in the context of sustainable finance
We call the EU to build or support, based on existing solutions, a centralised electronic European ESG data register. We understand that a common European Green Deal dataspace to support the Green…
October 10, 2020
Sustainable finance: future focused action now
Regulatory actions in the financial sector must prioritize the completion and implementation of the regulation developed in the 2018 Sustainable Finance Action Plan and what is provided in the EU…