While IFC’s withdrawal is welcome, civil society urges the Bank to stop funding WTE projects and move towards zero-waste solutions instead.
On 17 February, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank’s private sector arm, confirmed it will not provide a planned $40 million loan to support Abellon Clean Energy Limited (ACEL) to build four waste-to-energy (WTE) incineration plants in Gujarat, India. The decision comes after nine months of campaigning by civil society organisations (CSOs) and environmental groups, who raised concerns over the project’s pollution, public health risks and financial viability.
On 26 June 2024, CSOs – including the Centre for Financial Accountability (CFA) and the International Accountability Project (IAP) – sent a letter to the World Bank executive directors highlighting the project’s non-compliance with IFC’s Performance Standards, among other issues. A follow-up letter to the IFC executive directors on 21 August 2024, signed by 174 CSOs and activists globally, noted that the IFC’s flawed Environmental and Social Impact Assessments, which lacked consultation with communities, allowed the IFC to “give [the project] a lower risk rating of ‘Category B’”, despite the Central Pollution Control Board of India categorising WTE incinerators as a ‘red’ industry due to their massive environmental and social risks. Over the course of the year, CSOs also brought a complaint to the IFC’s Stakeholder Grievance Response Team and met with US Treasury and the World Bank executive directors in Washington DC during the 2024 Annual Meetings.
“Waste-to-energy (WTE) incineration projects are nothing but false climate solutions, with devastating environmental, air pollution, and health impacts,” noted Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran, of CFA. “By investing in WTE, the IFC is not only endorsing false solutions but deliberately turning a blind eye to the true, effective alternatives. If the World Bank Group is genuinely committed to addressing the climate crisis, the IFC must immediately place WTEs on its exclusionary list,” he added.
This article was originally published in Bretton Woods Project and can be read here.