The climate crisis disproportionally affects poor people in developing countries and is a major threat to the goal of eradicating poverty. Norfund’s climate position outlines the way in which Norfund intends to invest in a clean and climate resilient future in developing countries.
Norfund’s climate position is built on three pillars: resilience, reduction, and risk, as illustrated in the diagram below.
Resilience
Norfund’s contribution:
- Building climate resilience by prioritizing investments and job creation in the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Sub-Saharan Africa
Reduction
Norfund’s contribution:
- Investing in climate solutions such as large-scale renewable energy, transmission, waste management and water solutions to help avoid emissions and facilitate the transition to a low-carbon economy. We invest at least half of the capital allocated by our owner in renewables. In the period 2021-2023, the ambition is to finance eight GW of new capacity, of which more than 90% is renewable, and provide access to electricity to more than two million new households.
- Aligning all new investments with the objectives of the Paris Agreement by 2022 (in line with the EDFI climate and energy statement)
- Transitioning the total investment portfolio to net zero GHG emissions by 2050 at the latest (in line with the EDFI climate and energy statement)
- Avoiding fossil fuel investments in line with our fossil fuel exclusion list (with exemptions for Paris-aligned gas-fired power until 2030)
2021 achievements:
- Norfund was awarded the management of a new climate investment fund from the Norwegian Government and will step up climate funding significantly going forward. The plan is to allocate NOK ten billion over five years to the fund, of which half will come from Norfund’s own account, that will invest in renewable energy in developing countries with the aim of avoiding GHG emissions.
- 1,578 MW of new capacity was financed, of which 100% was renewable. This is a significant jump up from 695 MW renewable in 2020.
- Our investments in renewable energy produced 8.7 TWh
- These investments contributed to avoiding 4.5 million tonnes of CO2 emissions in 2021, down from 5.7 million tonnes of CO2 avoided in 2020. The reduction is due to the sale of SN Power. Avoided emissions are calculated using the harmonized IFI approach ‘Methodological Approach for the Common Default Grid Emission Factor Dataset’ (2022). The estimation includes all power producers where Norfund has an ownership share or has extended a loan to, that are providing electricity to the grid or substituting power from the grid (such as “captive power” solutions that provide power directly to a consumer, for instance rooftop solar). It does not include companies providing pure off-grid solutions such as Solar Home Systems.
Norfund’s investments have, since the fund was established in 1997, supported the installation of a total of almost 6,800 MW new renewable energy capacity. These investments contribute to avoiding 9 million tonnes of CO2 emissions annually, which corresponds to all total emissions from road transport and domestic flights in Norway.
Risk
Norfund’s contribution:
- Assessing material climate risks (physical and transition) for sectors, geographies and investees
- Using our role as owner to build capacity and support our investees to manage climate impacts, reduce financial risk and seize climate-related business opportunities where relevant
- Disclosing information in line with the Task force on Climate related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) recommendations
- Integrating climate risk in our Enterprise Risk Framework
tonnes CO2 emissions avoided annually by all greenfield renewable plants Norfund has supported since inception
TCFD (Task force on Climate related Financial Disclosures) report summary
At the link below you can find a summary of Norfund’s first report in line with the TCFD recommendations. We acknowledge that improving management of climate-related risks and opportunities is a journey, and we will continuously improve our practices.