Green business loan
Loans for businesses investing in renewable energy, energy savings and other projects with measurable environmental benefits.
Questa opportunità è attualmente disponibile in inglese.
You can finance or refinance qualifying environmental investments. Examples include solar or wind electricity production, and improvements that substantially cut emissions or improve the energy efficiency of industrial processes. For the latter, DNB compares the improvement with relevant industry standards, energy performance, comparable businesses or available technology; it must not prolong reliance on fossil-fuel infrastructure in a way that delays cleaner alternatives.
DNB says green loans have better terms than comparable loans without green qualities. The loan still goes through DNB’s normal credit assessment.
Eligibility
- Your business must qualify through DNB’s activity-specific framework, your own green framework with an independent external assessment (a Second Party Opinion), or full compliance with the EU taxonomy, the EU classification of environmentally sustainable activities. The taxonomy route requires all technical criteria to be independently verified; DNB assesses the quality of that verification. Those criteria cover a substantial contribution to an environmental objective, no significant harm to other objectives, and minimum social safeguards.
- For project loans, you must explain how you select qualifying projects and manage environmental and social risks, track the loan proceeds transparently, and use them exclusively for green projects. Report annually on their use until full allocation or loan maturity, and give DNB updated information after material changes.
- DNB may offer general corporate-purpose loans under its “Pure Play” route when at least 90% of the company’s activities qualify under its framework or the EU taxonomy. The remaining activities must not come from excluded activities at financing. DNB determines whether to measure this through revenue, expenditure or other indicators; you must confirm compliance annually, looking both backward and forward.
- DNB excludes activities involving human or labour-rights violations, corruption or serious environmental harm, and controversial activities such as adverse effects on ecologically or biologically vulnerable areas. Dedicated fossil-fuel exploration, extraction, production, refining, transport or distribution is excluded.
- Energy generation above 100 g CO₂e per kWh is excluded. DNB may make an exception for up to 10% of activities in a portfolio of non-fossil energy generation, assessed individually.
- New construction normally needs an environmental impact assessment. Early-stage financing may be exempt when that assessment process has not started or finished.
- DNB may allow more flexible documentation and reporting for small and medium-sized enterprises, case by case, while keeping the same green activity criteria. Its framework defines these businesses as having at most 250 employees, annual turnover no higher than EUR 50 million and a balance sheet total no higher than EUR 43 million. The simplified approach suits activities that are straightforward to verify, including renewable energy, and smaller credit facilities below NOK 50 million.
How to apply
- Stato
- Aperto continuamente
Contact your DNB customer adviser about the investment. DNB generally requires a technical project description showing its expected or actual benefits, documentation assessing potential adverse effects, and relevant supporting documents such as certifications or reports. Impact evidence should be quantified and externally verified where feasible. DNB checks green qualification internally and may require independent external verification when eligibility is uncertain.