THE GREEN CENTRAL BANKING SCORECARD

The Green Central Banking Scorecard evaluates G20 monetary and prudential authorities across four categories: Research and Advocacy, Monetary Policy, Financial Policy, and Leading by Example. The findings reveal a significant gap between rhetoric and action, with most institutions scoring high in research but failing to implement high-impact policies that restrict financial flows to fossil fuels. China, Brazil, and France are the top-ranked countries, though no G20 institution has implemented a 'high impact' policy as defined by the report's criteria.

• There is a universal absence of high-impact policies across all G20 central banks and supervisors, meaning no institution has implemented measures that decisively restrict financial support for fossil fuel activities.
• G20 institutions demonstrate a disparity between their public discourse and actual policy implementation, with the vast majority achieving full marks in Research and Advocacy while performing poorly in other categories.
• China is the highest-ranked G20 country with an aggregate score of 50/130, attributed to close coordination with government departments and a willingness to steer financial markets away from 'market neutrality'.
• Brazil ranks second with 45/130, notably for being the only G20 country to have explicitly banned the financing of a specific environmentally harmful activity via legislation restricting crop expansion in the Amazon.
• France ranks third with 43/130, benefiting from EU-level efforts by the ECB and EBA and national leadership from the Banque de France, particularly in sustainable investment charters and climate stress tests.
• Central banks often rely on flawed theoretical assumptions—specifically that environmental risks can be quantified and that financial markets are 'efficient'—which leads to a passive approach focused on disclosures rather than intervention.
• The principle of 'market neutrality' is criticized as a myth used to depoliticize asset purchase programmes and avoid steering financial flows from carbon-intensive to green assets.
• The report argues that pandemic risks are fundamentally environmental risks, yet fewer than 1% of central banks and supervisors integrated sustainability factors into their COVID-19 crisis responses.

APA

Barmes, D., & Livingstone, Z. (2021). THE GREEN CENTRAL BANKING SCORECARD. Reclaim Finance. https://reclaimfinance.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/The-Green-Central-Banking-Scorecard-18.03-under-embargo-1.pdf

Chicago

Barmes, David, and Zack Livingstone. THE GREEN CENTRAL BANKING SCORECARD. Reclaim Finance, 2021. https://reclaimfinance.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/The-Green-Central-Banking-Scorecard-18.03-under-embargo-1.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Barmes |first1=David |last2=Livingstone |first2=Zack |title=THE GREEN CENTRAL BANKING SCORECARD |publisher=Reclaim Finance |date=March 2021 |url=https://reclaimfinance.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/The-Green-Central-Banking-Scorecard-18.03-under-embargo-1.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{barmes2021green, author = {Barmes, David and Livingstone, Zack}, title = {{THE GREEN CENTRAL BANKING SCORECARD}}, institution = {Reclaim Finance}, year = {2021}, month = mar, url = {https://reclaimfinance.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/The-Green-Central-Banking-Scorecard-18.03-under-embargo-1.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }