Signature(s)
Summary sheet
- Credit lines - Credit lines
The operation, an EIB's counter-guarantee to EIF's retained Senior Tranche under the InvestEU Climate Mitigation Portfolio, will enable the EIF to meet excess demand under its InvestEU Sustainability Guarantee product. The EIF's InvestEU Sustainability Guarantee product will support exclusively (100%) sub-projects eligible under the Climate Action & Environmental Sustainability (CA&ES) criteria undertaken by small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), small mid-caps, natural persons and housing associations across the EU, Norway, and potentially, Iceland.
The primary policy objective is to enhance access to finance for the target beneficiaries, with a strong cohesion component expected to be realised upon deployment. Additionally, the aim is to contribute to the EIB's core strategic positioning as the Climate Bank, by only supporting sub-projects eligible under CA&ES. Given its Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (RE) components, the EIB-EIF joint SME sustainability guarantee will contribute both to the EIB's priority to support green investments by small businesses, an area of strategic interest for the EIB Group, and to the RePowerEU objectives. Finally, by introducing housing associations and natural persons as eligible financial beneficiaries, the operation is expected also to have an important signalling effect with respect to the viability of long-term debt financing products supporting smaller-scale eligible green investments in the residential housing sector.
The proposal is made in the context of EIB supporting the scaling-up of EIF's capacity to meet excess demand under their InvestEU Sustainability Guarantee product. The operation will support 100% CA&ES sub-projects, and thus contribute to the EIB's core strategic positioning as the Climate Bank, and count also toward the relevant RePowerEU objectives, given the considerable combined Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy content. By supporting predominantly SMEs (and small MidCaps), the operation will contribute to EIB's thematic priority to support energy efficiency and renewable energy investments by small enterprises, an area of strategic interest for the EIB Group. However, by introducing housing associations, and natural persons, as eligible financial beneficiaries, the operation is expected also to have an important signalling effect with respect to the viability of long-term debt financing products supporting smaller-scale CA&ES sub-projects in the residential housing sector.
The proposed operation falls within the scope of the EIB's Environmental and Social Standards - "Standard 11 Intermediated Finance". The Borrower / Financial Intermediary has adequate capacity, systems and processes in place for identifying, assessing, managing and monitoring environmental, climate and social (ECS) risks related to the potential sub-projects benefitting from EIB support. The Final beneficiaries will be required to comply with applicable national and EU legislation in respect of environmental and social matters, as appropriate.
Most of the final beneficiaries supported by the Bank will be SMEs and Mid-Caps, i.e. private companies not being subject to EU rules on public procurement and concessions.
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They are provided for transparency purposes only and cannot be considered to represent official EIB policy (see also the Explanatory notes).
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