ECB to buy fewer bonds from polluting companies

FRANKFURT, Sept 19 (Reuters): The European Central Bank will tilt its purchases of corporate bonds towards companies that emit less carbon, giving each firm a score based on their performance, goals and climate disclosures.

Hoping to play a part in the fight against climate change, the ECB unveiled a host of measures from bank supervision to monetary policy last year, and favouring companies with a better climate performance is among its latest moves.

"One goal is to reduce the Eurosystem's exposure to climate-related financial risk," the ECB said in a statement. "Furthermore, these measures support the green transition of the economy in line with the EU's climate neutrality objectives."

Starting next month, the ECB will use a climate score of its own creation when choosing how much of a company's debt it should buy with cash it gets from bonds that mature.

However, the bank will not sell bonds or exclude issuers even if a company receives a low climate score and it also will not disclose the climate score assigned to each firm.

Activist group Reclaim Finance, which campaigns for cutting finance to carbon-heavy industries, said the ECB was not going far enough.