The EU bank

The EIB promotes environmental sustainability - as well as closely related social well-being - in support of the EU policy on sustainable development. The general approach of the Bank in this regard is described in the Operational Strategy, various documents on Corporate Responsibility and most recently in the latest revision of its Environmental and Social Statement, entitled The EIB Statement of Environmental and Social Principles and Standards.

The EIB has three main objectives for defining its environmental and social responsibility:

• Ensure that all the projects that it finances are compliant with EU environmental principles and standards
• Promote specific projects that protect and improve the natural and built environments and foster social well-being, in support of EU policy, as elaborated in the Sixth Environmental Action Programme (EAP) "Environment 2010: our future, our choice
• Manage its environmental footprint, not just in terms of "housekeeping" but also with regard to the projects that it finances.

Environmental lending

In 2011, the EIB signed loan agreements for a total amount of EUR 28.4bn.

The bulk of environmental lending went to EU countries: in 2011, the EIB provided direct financing for a total of EUR 25.6bn in the European Union. These figures do not include environmental components of projects where the overall objective is not directly related to the environment. This component is currently not recorded by the Bank. Within the EU, most of the funding went to climate change, environment and health and sustainable transport.

In the Enlargement Countries the volume of environmental projects was EUR 1.3bn. In the Mediterranean partner countries, EUR 262m was advanced for environmental schemes. A further EUR 267m went to environmental projects in the ACP countries (including South Africa), EUR 912m to projects in Asia and Central and Latin America and EUR 46m to the Neighbourhood Partner Countries to the East.