Guarantee and Risk-Sharing Instruments for Financing Low-Emission Industrial Plants – Second Expert Workshop

From a financial perspective to validation with industry partners

The day opened with a study presentation by VDZ on the need for action and a possible implementation concept for financing and de-risking CO₂ infrastructure, presented by Manuel Mohr and Johannes Ruppert (VDZ) – a fitting starting point for the subsequent discussion on guarantee and risk-sharing instruments.

While the first workshop focused on the financial sector, drawing on selected input from the real economy, 13 July turned that perspective around: the outcomes of the first event, condensed into nine theses, were presented to a broad group of participants from both the real economy and the financial sector. The aim was to validate these theses from an industry perspective and, building on that, to discuss concrete solutions – following a welcome from Domenik Nehrig (IN4climate.NRW) and Kristina Jeromin (Made in Germany 2030), Malte Küper (German Economic Institute) provided an assessment on the potential contribution of guarantee instruments. Wolfgang Reich (PWC) then explored the scope, potential and limitations of federal and state guarantee programmes.

Nine Theses as a Basis for Discussion

The nine theses addressed the systemic requirements for de-risking, as well as the existing range of instruments and their practical suitability. The discussion highlighted, for example, that guarantee instruments alone do not resolve the underlying problem – rather, the decisive lever lies in de-risking further upstream, i.e. in reducing price, infrastructure and technology risks that determine whether a project can become bankable in the first place. Participants also agreed that the central challenge is not necessarily a lack of new instruments. Rather, what is needed is a well-coordinated combination of instruments, together with predictable framework conditions for infrastructure and energy prices. Only then can companies and their financing partners make investment decisions on a sufficiently reliable and long-term basis.

Strong partnerships

We thank IN4climate.NRW and VDZ for hosting the event, as well as the German Economic Institute and Fin.Connect.NRW for their content and organisational support.

More to come

With this second event, we successfully validated the theses developed together with the financial sector in May with a broad industry audience. The insights gained will feed into the third workshop of this year’s series. There, in autumn, we will add the perspective of financial supervisory authorities to develop holistic, division-of-labour approaches.