Within the Bundesbank, numerous business units have been addressing climate-related – and increasingly nature-related – risks in their work and analyses for a number of years now. Figure 4 provides an overview of the major milestones of the past few years in the Bundesbank’s work towards a more sustainable economic and financial system. 

Established back in 2021, the Green Finance Steering Committee (LAGFin) has the purpose of ensuring a consistently high level of ambition throughout the Bank as a whole and to provide strategic impetus for climate-related and nature-related work in the business units. It is headed by First Deputy Governor Dr Sabine Mauderer. President Dr Joachim Nagel and other Executive Board members regularly attend meetings, which are held every two months. Management-level staff of numerous business units and the Chief Operating Officer (COO) are permanent members. 1 The committee can use working groups made up of staff members from different business units to handle specific sustainability-related projects. 2 The working group leads provide regular reports during committee meetings to the participating members of the Executive Board, thus ensuring continuous project monitoring. In this way, the committee ensures that the Executive Board and the relevant business units build strong networks and are always informed about the Bank’s work. At the same time, this gives Executive Board members the ability to steer analyses and projects within the various business units in a targeted way. 

The Green Finance Steering Committee is flanked by the Green Finance Expert Group, which is a forum for regular expert-level interaction and dialogue across the Bank. Most recently, it has employed specialist lectures to provide impetus and foster capacity building within the Bundesbank. Alongside the institutionalised monthly dialogue, staff are supported in their activities by an interactive internal knowledge platform on climate-related work inside and outside the Bundesbank.

In order to better coordinate work across the Bank, the Sustainability Hub was set up in August 2023 and reports directly to the Executive Board. The hub’s tasks are coordination, strategy and specialist work. It coordinates interdisciplinary projects relating to sustainability and has a communication role both inside and outside the Bank on the issue of sustainability. In addition, it advises the Executive Board on strategic issues relating to sustainability, acts as the secretariat and agenda setter for the Green Finance Steering Committee, and coordinates specialist information sharing within the Green Finance Expert Group. Through all of the above, the Bundesbank is further strengthening its sustainability credentials. 

Figure 5 gives a simplified overview of the organisational structure of green finance at the Bundesbank. Sustainability – above all, the impact of climate change and climate policy on the economic and financial system – has a bearing on almost all Bundesbank business units.