Contribute to the realignment of the local government sector

As the largest lender to municipalities, regions and municipal companies, Kommuninvest facilitates society’s realignment process. Here, the local government sector plays an important role as it accounts for a significant share of the basic social infrastructure. Many local government authorities have adopted a target of climate-neutrality as early as by 2030, which affects social investments as well as [residents/citizens], the business community and others.

Green Loans – increasing the pace of transition

To stimulate local government sector work towards environmental and climate objectives and to increase its visibility, we offer Green Loans [LINK]. We finance these loans by issuing Green Bonds [LINK]. The programme was one of the winners of the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Target Award 2021.

In the annual Green Bonds Impact Report, [LINK] we detail the environmental and climate benefits of the local government investment projects being financed through Green Loans. To promote a harmonised and robust approach towards impact reporting, Kommuninvest has initiated a Nordic partnership resulting in a Nordic Position Paper on Green Bonds Impact Reporting [LINK].

As of 2024, the requirements for Green Loans have been adapted to the EU taxonomy [LINK to news item]

Climate targets

Kommuninvest has adopted the following targets to promote the local government sector’s environmental and climate transition within the framework of local government financial cooperation:

Kommuninvest shall provide tools and support enabling the municipal and regional sectors to achieve Sweden’s target of climate neutrality by 2045

To monitor progress in the desired direction, we shall measure in stages our financed greenhouse gas emissions and how these relate both to the long-term objective and to interim targets. By 2024, we shall have established an initial value for the lending portfolio, as that will be most clearly linked to our financed greenhouse gas emissions.

Climate plan

Our Climate plan [LINK] serves as a tool for the implementation of our strategy. The foremost priority is to generate value and benefit for customers, members and the sector as a whole. Accordingly, the core of our climate work involves helping reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Swedish municipalities and regions by providing relevant support and maintaining an active dialogue with local government borrowers. This entails helping our members and customers, through financing, achieve the ambitions of the Paris Agreement, Sweden’s objective of climate neutrality by 2045, and the individual climate targets set out within the local government sector

Our Climate plan Pdf, 2.4 MB, opens in new window.

Analysis of environmental and climate risks

As a stage in taking environmental and climate factors into account in our provision of credit, we are focusing on those factors that can have the greatest potential financial impact on our borrowers. Our analysis and review currently include four priority factors:

Floods, landslides and erosion (physical risk)
Contaminated water or drinking water shortage (physical risk)
Negative impact on water sources and/or bodies of water (transitional risk)
Greenhouse gas emissions (transitional risk)

Low direct influence in-house

In recent years, Kommuninvest has more than halved its total climate footprint. In 2023, it was, for the first time, less than 1 tonne CO2e per employee. This was mainly a consequence of decreased climate impact from business travel and energy efficiency measures taken at the Örebro offices.