Sustainable Reserve Management

In accordance with its mandate, the National Bank of Slovakia manages so-called investment reserves used to conduct operations in the financial market.

Therein, the NBS acts as a prudent and responsible investor.

In practice, this means that it invests only in assets and instruments whose risks are monitored, reported, and managed. At the same time, it observes several other investment principles, among whose is also the consideration of sustainable investment practices.

In early 2025, the NBS adopted a sustainable investment strategy. This step further strengthened institutional support for climate-responsible investing. In addition to monitoring issuers’ ESG ratings, the NBS has committed to supporting decarbonization, developing thematic investing, as well as to applying so-called negative screening (i.e., excluding issuers active in negatively perceived or controversial sectors, such as tobacco production, cluster munitions manufacturing, coal-fired power plants, or those who fail to comply with basic environmental and ethical standards). In this way, the NBS contributes to fulfilling Slovakia’s climate commitments and optimizes returns in changing economic and regulatory conditions.

Since 2022, the public has been informed about the NBS performance in meeting climate goals in the management of its reserves through the annual climate-related reports on the NBS’s non-monetary policy portfolios. In this way, the NBS fulfils the joint commitment of the Eurosystem central banks to sustainable and responsible investment.

The scope of reporting has been gradually expanding in recent years. Key climate indicators, such as weighted average carbon intensity, total carbon emissions, and carbon footprint, are disclosed not only for the NBS’s bond portfolios denominated in euros but also for those in foreign currencies, as well as for equity portfolios. These indicators are reported not only based on greenhouse gas emissions from its own operations (Scope 1) and from energy consumption (Scope 2), but also from activities across the entire supply and customer chain (Scope 3). This demonstrates the comprehensiveness of the chosen reporting approach. The NBS also reports on the volume and share of green, social, and sustainable bonds in its portfolios.