Managing Director's review

In 2021 we launched our new strategy and celebrated 30 years of green financing. Over the years we have financed more than 1,500 green projects.

With the new strategy, we are increasingly focusing on financing the internationalisation of green projects by Nordic SMEs. It is often difficult for these companies to access scale-up funding, but we can support them by taking a greater financial risk – if there is a green upside.

It has been a challenging year for many companies as the pandemic has slowed business growth. That is why we developed the green recovery loan programme; the first projects were approved in January, soon after launch. Over the year we financed a steady flow of interesting green projects under the programme.

In Eastern Europe, we are continuing our work with municipalities to modernise district heating, improve energy efficiency and modernise wastewater treatment. These projects are showing good results and are excellent examples of what can be achieved in climate mitigation and in creating safer, healthier, and more sustainable communities.

Our third area of financing activities involves fund assignments from governments and agencies in the Nordics and beyond, with specific mandates to mitigate climate change and protect water and marine resources. The new initiatives for clean energy access in Africa and the positive development regarding the Paris Agreement’s new Article 6 rules provide excellent opportunities for new fund assignments for Nefco. 

Nefco has had its own environmental criteria and assessment tool for 30 years. The EU Taxonomy is now providing new ways to classify and evaluate financing activities, and in 2021 we started to apply this classification system in addition to our already proven assessment methodology when evaluating project proposals. Although still being work in progress, as the Nordic Green Bank, we are pleased to see the results of our first year using the Taxonomy classification.

Our happiest moments are when a Nordic green entrepreneur scales up internationally or a Nefco financed green project has encouraged others by demonstrating what is possible. As the Nordic Green Bank, we expect more than just Return on Investment: we expect Return on Impact.