Awards for Excellence 2019
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Ukrgasbank is one Ukraine’s largest banks, serving 900,000 retail customers in addition to small and medium-sized enterprises and corporates.
It is also an example of sustainability in the region, having set out in 2016 with the IFC to develop green banking in Ukraine. It deservedly wins the award for CEE’s best bank for sustainable finance.
In 2018, the bank financed 60% of all new renewable energy facilities in Ukraine, including the first solar power station in the Chernobyl exclusion zone in 2018. The green projects funded by the bank allow the reduction of carbon emissions of almost a million tonnes a year.
Some 90% of projects in Ukraine in renewables, energy efficiency and environmental protection go through the bank.
Ukraine is the most energy intensive country in the region and indeed the whole of Europe. The country still consumes three times more energy per capita than its European neighbours and recycles only 4% of its waste (as compared to 40% in the EU) – this is largely due to outdated Soviet infrastructure and the urgent need for modernization.
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| Kyrylo Shevchenko |
Ukrgasbank is the only lender in Ukraine that offers green loans, including financing of solar stations and wind farms, biomass projects and electric vehicles. More than half of Ukrgasbank’s total SME loan portfolio and a quarter of its corporate loan portfolio is made up of green loans.
“With the IFC estimating Ukraine’s climate investment potential at $73 billion between now and 2030, we saw a remarkable opportunity for green finance in the country back in 2015,” says Kyrylo Shevchenko, chairman of Ukrgasbank’s board.
“Green banking offered us a unique opportunity to be a pioneer in a market that was largely undeveloped and lacked the green finance expertise, so we became the first universal lender in eastern Europe to focus on that sector of the market.”
In May 2018, Ukrgasbank also became the first participant from Ukraine to join the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition (CPLC).
