The European Investment Bank (EIB) organized on 20 March 2012 a workshop with civil society organisations to discuss and exchange views on the Bank’s approach to carbon footprinting i.e. assessing the greenhouse gas GHG emissions of the projects the EIB finances.
Staff working in the Bank's Environmental, Climate and Social Office (ECSO) and in the energy and transport departments presented the EIB’s carbon footprint methodology to a diverse group of environmental civil society organisation. EIB staff explained the application of the methodologies in detail, drawing on case examples for projects in the sectors energy and transport.
The workshop contributed to the understanding of the Bank’s work in this area and the challenges inherent to assessing GHG emissions of projects. The event was very well received by both the participating civil society representatives and EIB staff.
Background
In January 2009, the EIB launched an exercise to assess the carbon footprint induced by the projects the Bank finances with the aim of gaining a better understanding of its contribution to global GHG emissions (more information and a detailed outline of the methodologies is available at http://www.eib.org/about/documents/footprint-methodologies.htm).
Throughout the pilot, consideration has been given how to best use this data to inform about the Bank’s thinking on individual projects, its sector guidelines and its strategy as a whole in the field of climate action. The EIB is currently consolidating the results of the 2011 exercise and expects to have drawn conclusions from the three years of the pilot by mid-2012.
Within this context, the EIB wanted to present and discuss its methodological approach, the lessons learnt during the pilot as well as the challenges related to the application of the methodologies while seeking the view of stakeholders in order to further increase mutual understanding and the application of common approaches in this field.