Impact Investment of Project Financing: Opportunity for Banks to Participate in Supporting Green Economy

The article analyses impact investment of project financing. Companies’ own funds, own funds of the consortium members, the company’s own resources and budget funding, own funds of the company on the basis of a production sharing agreement, borrowed funds; the funds raised by the bond issue are all considered as the project financing sources in the natural resource field. The purpose of this article is to consider various opportunities to support environmentally oriented projects in the framework of project financing, including through attracting funds of banks for the development of “green” economy. The role of banks and the banking sector in supporting environmentally and socially oriented projects is analysed. The experience of banks in Asia, Europe and the United States in terms of “green” economy projects is shown. Moreover, environmental and social risks, and impact of a project, the project compliance with the norms and standards of responsible finance are all considered in this article.

Classification of environmental projects with the purpose of project financing is proposed, and also the scheme of interaction between stakeholders is shown, including banks, in the implementation of projects reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, impact investment in financing projects with the participation of banking sector is analysed and justified on the example of such countries as Mongolia, Russia, Japan, the United States and others. Evaluation procedures and the selection of projects for social investment purposes are shown in the article, including the measures of supporting banks for the project implementation in the field of “green” economy. The following research methods are considered: systematic analysis, environmental economic analysis environmental auditing, statistical methods for evaluating the costs and benefits from implementing environmentally oriented projects, methods of assessment of damage from environmental pollution, etc.