With heatwaves and wildfires ravaging Europe, it has never been more crucial to fully and rapidly decarbonise our energy systems. This is why it is so concerning that ENI, the Italian oil major, is seeking to transform its refineries at Livorno and Sannazzaro de’ Burgondi into biorefineries for the production of road, shipping and aviation fuels from vegetable oils and animal fats, and even more concerning that the European Investment Bank (EIB) has already approved loans to ENI of €500 million for each conversion. The only truly green future for these refineries is closure, with compensation and retraining for the workforce, but instead the EIB has chosen to reward ENI for pursuing a strategy linked to deforestation, food insecurity, land grabbing, industrial accidents and heightened carbon emissions. This is why Biofuelwatch and CounterBalance, together with other European environmental organisations, have written to the EIB urging them to rescind approval for these loans and carry out more stringent environmental assessment of the proposed projects, ultimately redirecting the money towards genuine renewables.
The EIB styles itself as the ‘EU Climate Bank’, relying on a reputation for sustainable investment that these loans profoundly undermine. Biofuel feedstocks like soy and palm are huge culprits in the loss of tropical rainforest and peat wetlands, compete with staple food crops, driving up food prices and worsening malnutrition, and generate comparable CO2 emissions to fossil fuels at the point of combustion (more when their entire life cycle is considered). Moreover, the wastes and residues that the EU relies upon in their place, in an attempt at greater environmental protection, are certified by auditing bodies such as the ISCC, which have been found to be not fit for purpose by multiple investigations. This means that much of the ‘used cooking oil’ and other supposed waste products entering the EU for refining at facilities like Livorno and Sannazzaro are in fact fraudulently labelled virgin vegetable oils, implicated in some of the most destructive business practices of industrial agriculture.
For all these reasons, the signatories felt that such large loans should not go unchallenged. The EIB operates a framework known as PATH, which was implemented to avoid companies still involved in fossil fuel extraction from greenwashing their reputation through EIB support. Corporates deriving more than 20% of their turnover from fossil fuels are meant to be forbidden from accessing funds, and in 2025 fossil-derived earnings were 90% of ENI’s turnover. While strategic exemptions can be granted under the RePowerEU scheme, these are generally understood to be for small amounts, not loans amounting to €1 billion. It is hard to read the EIB’s support of ENI as anything other than propping up an oil and gas company at a time when stringent decarbonisation is our only credible path forward. Our letter to the EIB, which outlines all these arguments in more detail, can be found below.
