EBRD Launches New Program to Support Green Economy in Kazakhstan

The Green Economy Financing Facility program will be launched by EBRD in Kazakhstan in September. The main goal of this initiative is to facilitate large companies, small businesses and households to make their houses and offices more comfortable while saving resources and money with help of new technologies.

Once the program is launched, Kazakhstan will become its 27th participant and the first country where GEFF would be launched after the pandemic. Despite difficulties that businesses have faced, now is the best moment to demonstrate how rewarding these new technologies might be to improve the competitiveness of certain businesses and the country’s economy as a whole.

According to 13 European governments including those of Germany, Spain, Italy and France, GEFF was tremendously helpful in handling the pandemic consequences. In the European Union, this is a new strategy of pursuing economic growth and creating new jobs through the shift of all sectors and industries to green economy as soon as possible.  

Since 2004, the GEFF program has invested more than €4.6 billion in the global green economy and implemented 190,000 projects in dozens of industries. After these projects have been implemented, the global CO2 emission was reduced roughly by 8.6 million tons per year. And this is not a final achievement yet. 

In practice, the program is implemented through loan facilities to 145,000 EBRD partners in all 27 countries where GEFF is available. As expected, in Kazakhstan GEFF will work on several thousand green projects that will be aimed to increase the energy efficiency of houses and businesses. As a result, energy consumption is supposed to decrease by 150,000 gigajoules per year. The CO2 emission should also decline by 40,000 tons a year.

GEFF will also promote new technologies to boost energy efficiency in Kazakhstan’s economy. To achieve this goal, EBRD has created a special catalog called Green Technologies Selector with all equipment, materials and technologies produced locally or abroad that comply with Kazakhstan’s rules, international standards and GEFF program criteria. Therefore, when a partner wants to use materials or equipment from the Green Technologies Selector, it doesn’t require additional approval to get a GEFF loan. 

Currently, Green Technologies Selector in Kazakhstan includes about 2,800 items and 15 key product categories. Kazakhstani businesses that produce or supply energy efficiency products may also participate in the GEFF program. 

In this case, they have to add their products to the catalog and sell them on-the-cuff through financial partners of the program. Moreover, for them, the participation in the GEFF and Green Technologies Selector is absolutely free of charge. 

GEFF participants will also be able to receive free technical advice from program engineers and only then make a decision about a loan. The program has no restrictions by location criteria and covers all range of potential clients.

The GEFF program in Kazakhstan also supports gender activities and aimed at increasing equal opportunities for both women and men in access to financial resources for green technology usage.

Kazakhstan has come a long way in developing green technologies and attracting investments for these purposes during the last several years. In total, from 2013 to 2019, the EBRD had been investing €1.3 billion in green projects in Kazakhstan. About €364 million were allocated to renewable energy projects.