The European Central Bank announced on Monday it would make fighting climate change a part of its monetary policy operations, including introducing several new measures toward maintaining the Eurosystem’s monetary policy framework.
The ECB plans to gradually decarbonize its corporate bond holdings, limit the share of assets issued by entities with a high carbon footprint that can be pledged as collateral by individual counterparties when borrowing from the Eurosystem, while only accepting marketable assets and credit claims from companies and debtors that comply with EU directives.
"Within our mandate, we are taking further concrete steps to incorporate climate change into our monetary policy operations. And, as part of our evolving climate agenda, there will be more steps to align our activities with the goals of the Paris Agreement," ECB President Christine Lagarde noted.
