Nepal Bankers’ Association (NBA), in collaboration with Invest for Impact Nepal (IIN) and Environment Management Company (EMC), organized a virtual session of the Community of Practice (CoP) on “Climate Finance Opportunities in the Banking Sector”. The session was a part of NBA’s ongoing initiative to strengthen sustainable finance practices, which focused on opportunities that climate finance offers to the banking sector.
Delivering the welcome remarks, Mr. Kapil Gautam, Lead – NBA Sustainable Finance Unit, highlighted the aims of the program and underscored NBA’s continued efforts to promote sustainable finance practices in Nepal’s banking sector. He emphasized the role of peer learning, institutional capacity-building and knowledge exchange among banking professionals as key drivers in advancing sustainable finance.
The virtual session featured two technical sessions. The first technical presentation was delivered by Mr. Rajnish Kadambar, Executive Director & Head of ESG at Eversource Capital Private Limited. He outlined the significance of climate finance, noting its role in reducing reliance on fossil fuels and enhancing resilience to climate impacts. Highlighting on the different funding sources and financial instruments, Mr. Kadambar stressed the increasing importance of adaptation finance and loss and damage finance, especially for the climate vulnerable countries like Nepal.
The second technical session was led by FMO team members; Ms. Claire Gilligs, Manager, Sustainability Standards Integration and Ms. Roxana Ignat, Senior Investment Officer. They focused on the role of ESG practitioners in climate finance and shared global perspectives on emerging trends and opportunities. Ms. Gillig highlighted the key drivers of climate investing, including technological developments and the urgent need for adaptation and resilience solutions. Ms. Ignat elaborated on practical assessments approaches, emphasizing that renewal projects must comply with green finance taxonomies and adhere to the “do no significant harm” principle.
The session was moderated by Ms. Krupa Desi from EMC and it was followed by an engaging interactive Q&A segment. More than 40 officials from member banks participated in the program. The session was part of the ongoing Community of Practice (CoP) initiatives led by NBA’s Sustainable Finance Unit.