moscow feb 8 reuters  sberbank sbermm on tuesday said it would lower interest rates on loans linked to environmental social and governance projects to encourage companies to move towards carbon neutrality counting on russias central bank to ease capital rules later this year russia is one of the worlds top carbon dioxide emitters along with china the united states and india and has set a goal of carbon neutrality by 2060  a process in which russian forests hydro and nuclear energy should play key roles staterun sberbank russias biggest bank last year told reuters it planned to increase its esg loan portfolio by more than 40 to 200 billion roubles 27 billion in 2021 and then expand it further this year read more alexander vedyakhin sberbanks first deputy chairman said on tuesday the bank was giving customers its own esg rating and would reduce interest rates for those that perform best for now this is at sberbanks expense vedyakhin said at a corporate governance forum we hope that this year the regulator will still make a decision and help all banks including sberbank to lower the capital burden of issuing green loans russias central bank in november told reuters it planned to ease capital requirements for banks that lend money to ecofriendly projects and raise them for those giving loans to companies that do not disclose their ecological impact read more sberbank last month adopted a 2023 climate strategy committing to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by next year it also aims to go climate neutral in operations by 2030 president vladimir putin on tuesday gave his support for russias green energy transition saying the countrys scientific potential could help it to develop environmentally clean energy resources reporting by elena fabrichnaya additional reporting by andrey ostroukh writing by alexander marrow and jane merriman