ABSTRACT

While there is increasing interest in decarbonizing or greening monetary policy, central banks are keen to maintain market neutrality. However, there is evidence that the market has a bias towards carbon-intensive companies. The paper develops a method to tilt the European Central Bank’s (ECB) asset and collateral framework towards low-carbon assets. We find that a medium tilting approach reduces carbon emissions in the ECB’s corporate and bank bond portfolio by over 50%. We show that a low carbon allocation can be done without undue interference with the transmission mechanism of monetary policy.

Key policy insights

• The ECB’s asset and collateral portfolio for monetary policy operations is overweight in high carbon companies.

• A medium tilting approach towards low-carbon companies reduces carbon emissions by 55% in the ECB's portfolio.

• It also reduces the cost of capital for low carbon companies. This is an incentive for high carbon companies to reform and adopt low carbon technologies.

摘要

尽管人们对脱碳或绿化货币政策的兴趣日益浓厚，但各国中央银行仍热衷于保持市场中立。但是，有证据表明，市场偏向于碳密集型公司。本文提出了一种使欧洲中央银行（ECB）资产和抵押品框架向低碳资产倾斜的方法。我们发现，采用中等倾斜方法可以将欧洲央行的公司和银行债券投资组合中的碳排放量减少50％以上。我们表明，可以在不过度干扰货币政策传导机制的情况下实现低碳分配。

重要政策见解

• 在高碳公司中，欧洲央行用于货币政策操作的资产和抵押投资组合过重。

• 对低碳公司采取中度倾斜的方法可使欧洲央行的投资组合中的碳排放减少55％。

• 它还降低了低碳公司的资本成本。这激励了高碳企业改革和采用低碳技术。