The European Central Bank (ECB) has released updated statistical climate indicators designed to enhance the financial sector's ability to assess developments in sustainable finance as well as transition and physical risks related to climate change. These updates incorporate advanced methodologies, new datasets and adjustments to reflect inflation effects, ensuring more precise tracking of decarbonisation efforts and the intensifying impact of climate-related hazards.
Sustainable finance indicators
The indicators on issuances and holdings of sustainable debt securities in the euro area, originally published in January 2023, are designed to offer a comprehensive view of the funds raised to support sustainable projects, while also capturing the growing demand for such instruments as investment opportunities. They bring greater transparency to financial markets and support the inclusion of climate change considerations into the ECB’s monetary policy, financial stability and economic analyses.
Since their launch, the indicators have been repeatedly enriched to offer deeper insights into the market for sustainable finance and to better serve policymakers, market participants and analysts
As of November 2023, data on sustainable debt securities are published for two levels of assurance: i) instruments with a second party opinion (SPO) validating the sustainability claims of the issuer, and ii) all sustainable instruments, i.e. with all degrees of assurance, including also only self-labelled instruments. Building on this progress, in September 2024 additional breakdowns were incorporated into the indicators. These are published as official European System of Central Banks (ESCB) statistics.