Share of the banking sector in the activity for environmental protection
The process of integration with the European Union is connected with the necessity of making considerable investment outlays in the field of environmental protection. These are costs of the order of 20–39 billion euro depending on the decisions concerning the interpretation of the requirements for Poland. An essential source of financing investments for environmental protection will be bank credit. In this context it is important to what degree the Polish banks could adapt their current activity to the specific conditions of implementation the policy of environmental protection. Possible variants of the participation of banks for environmental protection concern both active and passive operations. In the scope of active operations the bank can engage in environmental protection by recognizing ecological risk as part of the credit risk in bank activity and also by providing credits. Whereas in the scope of passive operations the banks have the possibility of using a suitably chosen set of instruments serving to obtain capital for financing ecological undertakings.
Depending on the differences in the scope of action, organization and the principles of functioning of the bank one can distinguish two types of ecological banks: the ecological bank and the bank in which equally important as the ecological criterion are the commercial principles of conducting bank activity.
The banks are trying to face the difficult ecological problems also in a complex way and on the level of international settlements. Such a breakthrough moment in the functioning of the banks for which the subject of environmental protection is not alien was the signing of the declaration UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) “Financial Institutions on the Environment and Sustainable Development”.
It must be taken into account that with the progress in the implementation of adaptation programmes in the field of environmental protection the commitment of the bank sector will grow for gaining and making available financial means for investors.
