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ING's breakthrough decision - the bank is moving away from coal!

12 December 2017

As we can read in the Declaration:

By the end of 2025, the Bank will gradually phase out lending to individual coal-fired power plants.
By the end of 2025, the Bank will no longer finance clients in the utilities sector that are over 5% reliant on coal fired power in their energy mix. The Bank intends to continue to finance non-coal energy projects for these clients in support of their energy transition.
At the same time, the Bank will establish new relationships with clients in the utilities sector only when their reliance on coal is 10% or less and they have a strategy to reduce their coal percentage to close to zero by 2025.

The Dutch ING Bank was involved in many coal-based investments. In 2015, in connection with the conclusion of the global agreement on climate protection in Paris, the Bank announced that it was finishing with the financing of new coal mines and coal-fired power plants as well as new customers that derived over 50% of the profit from this fuel. It was an important move, but it contained a serious gap – ING intended to continue cooperation with old clients with whom he had concluded contracts before 2015. It also enabled supporting coal companies in an indirect way – by granting them loans and guaranteeing bonds. ING financed, among others, coal companies in Poland. ING Bank Śląski provided financing for Polish companies including PGE and ENEA – the latter, together with ENERGA, plans to build a coal-fired power plant Ostrołęka C.

On May 8, 2017, representatives of Polish and foreign non-governmental organizations took part in the General Meeting of Shareholders of ING Bank to call on the bank to tighten its climate policy and stop financing companies that are planning new projects based on coal. There were also talks with ING Bank Śląski.

The ING Declaration is an ambitious step towards combating global warming, which makes it an authentic leader in climate protection. It has been enthusiastically received by social organizations, which expect that other banks will follow ING's example.

Przeczytaj także:

Capacity market will not help coal - new power plants are like castles built on sand There is an ongoing debate on the rationality of building new power plants in the face of the global end of coal. The recently published two articles show that the capacity market will not help coal and that most of the new power plants planned in Europe have not been created at all. Meanwhile, ENERGA completely fails to notice these threats and is going further into the project of the Ostrołęka C power plant.

ENERGA AGM: shareholders ask about Ostrołęka C A representative of the Association Workshop for All Beings attended the Annual General Meeting of ENERGA in order to present the Board with several questions regarding company’s energy and climate policy and the Ostrołęka C project.

Campaign for green and healthy Kurpie region launched! "We are happy to announce that we have launched an awareness-rising campaign on the threats posed by the planned Ostrołęka C coal-fired power plant and on alternative energy solutions which could be developed in this region. Ostrołęka C is a common cause which is why it is so important that everybody had access to full information on its social and environmental impacts – says Radosław Ślusarczyk from Association Workshop for All Beings.

ENERGA avoids answering inconvenient questions During the Annual General Meeting NGOs asked the ENERGA Group several questions related to the Ostrołęka C power plant project. The company’s response overlooks numerous key issues regarding profitability of this project and its environmental impacts.

‘Green light’ for Ostrołęka On August 20 2017, the Society for the Earth and the Green Institute is starting the ‘Green Light’ social action. As part of the campaign, 40 families from 16 towns in the Ostrołęka county (Mazovian voivodeship) will receive energy-efficient lighting free of charge. The aim of the project is to draw attention to the problem of energy poverty and the role of increasing energy efficiency in the fight against it.

Winter package puts Ostrołeka C in serious trouble Planned in the Rzekuń municipality, the coal-fired power plant Ostrołęka C is expected to cost a substantial PLN 6 billion. However, the investment risk is so great that in December 2016 the original owner of the project – the Energa Group – signed a contract for joint implementation of the project with Enea S.A. The investment is also to receive financial support from the outside.