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Add to Preferred SourcesWater is at the core of human activities and a critical resource for food production, energy systems, drinking and sanitation. It is no surprise that this vital resource is increasingly coming under pressure from human activity, through excessive use, untreated waste streams, and plastic pollution.
Water is also at the heart of adaptation to climate change. Some 90% of all natural disasters are water-related, according to the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. Approximately three in ten people live in low-lying coastal areas or flood-prone zones. Focused action on better management of water is needed, as recognised by UN Sustainable Development Goal 6.
The Nordic-Baltic region is blessed with rich water resources, and NIB intends to help protect these for the future. Improving the environment is one of the pillars of NIB’s mandate and NIB has played an important role in the protection of the Baltic Sea for decades. Over the past fifteen years, the Bank has financed numerous projects with positive effects on the marine environment and the quality of surface and groundwater.
Among the most important projects financed by NIB were the completion of a wastewater treatment plant and a 12-kilometre sewage collector in St Petersburg in Russia, the largest city in the Baltic Sea region—and once its largest polluter. The NIB-financed project completed the city’s decades-long efforts to reduce discharges of untreated effluent into the Baltic Sea. The Bank is also financing investments in discharge-cleaning projects in its member states, and in Poland and Belarus.
NIB intends to continue and intensify its efforts towards a cleaner and smarter water infrastructure and management in the Nordic-Baltic region, contributing to the objectives outlined by the HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan and the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive. NIB’s Nordic-Baltic blue bond intends to support this by focusing investments on the protection of water resources in Nordic and Baltic waters.
Original source: NIB
Published on 24 January 2019