Nefco

The Nordic Environment Finance Corporation (NEFCO) is an international finance institution established in 1990 by the five Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden with the aim to finance environmental and climate projects in a cost-efficient way. To date, NEFCO has financed a wide range of green projects in some 80 countries, with focus on Central and Eastern European countries, including Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. NEFCO is headquartered in Helsinki.

NEFCO's portfolio currently comprises over 1,300 small and medium-sized projects spread across different sectors, including: chemical, mineral and metals, food and engineering, agriculture, water treatment, power utilities, municipal services, waste management, nuclear remediation, environmental management and environmental equipment manufacturing.

To provide the capital necessary to support projects, NEFCO works with its own paid-in capital and a series of different funding bodies. NEFCO manages trust funds and facilities such as the Nordic Environmental Development Fund, the Nordic Project Fund (Nopef), the Arctic Council Project Support Instrument, the Barents Hot Spots Facility, Beyond the Grid Fund for Africa, and a range of funds of the Governments of the Nordic countries. NEFCO also implements projects funded by multilateral organs such as the EU, E5P and NDEP.on behalf of other parties who are providing resources to environmental projects.

NEFCO projects are usually run in partnership with the enterprise or organisation that 'owns' the project. Emphasis is placed on direct investments from, for example, public-private partnerships and corporate public services. The structure of any project supported by NEFCO needs to create reasonable equilibrium between risk and reward for all interested parties. The aim is to achieve a fair and transparent balance between the structuring of investments and their environmental return. Viewed in the context of associated risk, NEFCO aims to offer competitive terms at all times.

Through its network of partnerships, NEFCO supplements finance from other interested parties and financial institutions. NEFCO also co-operates with bilateral environmental assistance programmes.