Nepal Bankers’ Association (NBA), in collaboration with Invest for Impact Nepal successfully hosted a virtual session of the Community of Practice (CoP) on “Climate Risk in the Banking Sector”. The event brought together sustainability professionals from member banks to engage in an interactive dialogue on the growing importance of integrating climate risk into banking operations.
Delivering the opening remarks, Mr. Kapil Gautam, Lead – NBA Sustainable Finance Unit, highlighted the objectives of the program and underscored that the session was part of NBA’s ongoing CoP initiatives that aims to foster peer learning, strengthen institutional capacity, and facilitate knowledge exchange among banking professionals engaged in sustainable finance.
The virtual session featured two insightful technical presentations. The first was delivered by Mr. Nagasimha Swamy, Manager – Environment & Social at British International Investment (BII), who shared global learnings on climate risk and their relevance for Nepal’s banking sector. During his presentation he discussed on physical and the transitional climate risk and highlighted that Nepalese banking sector must act proactively to integrate global climate risk practices.
The second presentation was led by Ms. Krupa Desai from Environment Management Company (EMC). She focused on the impacts of climate change, key methodologies for climate risk assessment, and the strategies that Nepalese banking and financial sector should adopt to address climate-related risks in their lending operations.
The session was moderated by Dr. Prasad Modak, Managing Director at EMC. Especially in light of the growing investments in climate sensitive sectors and the rising associated risks, he underscored the urgent need for collective collaboration across all sectors, including regulators, financial institutions, and development partners to support a sustainable transition. The program was followed by an interactive Q&A session and was attended by over 30 officials from member banks. The session was part of the ongoing Community of Practice (CoP) initiatives led by NBA’s Sustainable Finance Unit.
