Banks, investors, insurers and regulators are increasingly analyzing and adapting their financial strategies taking into account the risks and opportunities presented by the clean energy transition. Investments in renewable energy are currently a standard practice for most financial institutions. Investments in energy efficiency are also growing, yet their transaction size is small in comparison. Nevertheless, energy efficiency cuts across core asset classes and the most important components of global economic output and wealth. Modernizing the financial system to better collect and price energy efficiency data is also a key contribution to the resilience of the entire financial system.

At the G20 Global Summit on Financing Energy Efficiency, Innovation and Clean Technology held in June 2019 in Tokyo, Japan more than 140 senior executives of financial institutions, G20 policymakers and technology experts gathered to discuss scaling up the energy efficiency investment market and to take stock of the leading practices of G20 economies. It set a milestone for the implementation of the 2017 G20 Energy Efficiency Investment Toolkit and was a useful review point for the progress made by the task group and its member economies.

This stocktake report is based on participants’ insights, contributions and discussions and supplements these with additional findings from the numerous bilateral engagements the task
group conducted in the lead-up to the 2019 G20 Summit.

Download the report here.

Find out more about UNEP FI’s work with financial institutions on energy efficiency here.