ASTANA — The Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) has directed a cumulative $2 billion toward sustainable development projects and expanded its green investment portfolio to $1.08 billion in 2025, according to the bank’s Sustainability Report presented during its Annual Meeting and Business Forum on June 26 in Almaty.
EDB Deputy Chairman and Chief Economist Evgeny Vinokurov (L) speaks at the presentation of the report during the Eurasian Development Bank’s Annual Meeting and Business Forum in Almaty on June 26. Photo credit: EDB The report highlighted the bank’s growing role in financing green energy, climate resilience and sustainable infrastructure projects across its member states, while also outlining new efforts to assess climate-related risks in its investment portfolio.
Speaking at the report presentation, EDB Deputy Chairman and Chief Economist Evgeny Vinokurov said sustainability reporting has become an important tool for both transparency and institutional development. “ESG reporting helps us become better. Investors, rating agencies and partners assess us and expect high-quality disclosure.
Each year, while preparing the report, we re-evaluate our activities, introduce new methodologies and standards, assess results from different perspectives and ask ourselves difficult but important questions,” said Vinokurov. He noted that the bank received an A- rating from international ESG rating agency CCXGF, which he said confirms that the institution is moving in the right direction.
In 2025, EDB experts conducted a comprehensive climate risk assessment of the bank’s investment portfolio for the first time, evaluating potential impacts under four climate scenarios throughout the full life cycle of loans. The assessment identified water scarcity as the most significant climate risk, with potential losses estimated at $36 million.
Other major risks included extreme temperatures, with estimated losses of $26 million, and droughts, with estimated losses of $14 million. Despite these challenges, the bank estimated that total potential climate-related losses would not exceed 1.23% of its current investment portfolio.
To strengthen climate resilience across the region, EDB expanded cooperation with international organizations. In Kazakhstan, the bank partnered with the United Nations Development Program and the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation to launch a project to develop a business ecosystem for sustainable irrigation and improve adaptation to climate change.
The bank also collaborated with the CAREC Institute on a study examining the readiness of Central Asian countries and Azerbaijan to introduce carbon pricing mechanisms. EDB’s green investment portfolio continued to grow throughout 2025, reaching $1.08 billion, while cumulative green investments rose to $2 billion.
Most of the financing was directed toward renewable energy and energy-efficiency projects. Among the flagship initiatives is the construction of a 300-megawatt solar power plant in Kyrgyzstan’s Issyk-Kul Region, one of the largest solar energy projects in the Commonwealth of Independent States.
Projects contributing to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals accounted for more than 25% of the bank’s total portfolio by the end of 2025.