The 30% That Isn't a Target: Reading Jordan's Green Finance Strategy 2023-2028 Correctly

Introduction

One number from Jordan’s Green Finance Strategy gets repeated constantly, and it is usually stated wrongly. The 30% figure is not a target that a bank’s portfolio must be 30% green. It is something more modest and more precise. Getting it right matters, because overstating it turns a directional expectation into an imagined mandate. This article reads the CBJ Green Finance Strategy 2023-2028 correctly, including its two pillars and the real meaning of the 30%.

What the strategy is

The Central Bank of Jordan launched the Green Finance Strategy in November 2023, prepared with World Bank technical assistance and described as the first green-finance strategy of its kind in the MENA region. It is a strategy and roadmap, not a binding regulation. It sets out the Central Bank’s own workplan, such as developing a national green taxonomy, a green loan framework and a sector-wide climate risk assessment, and it signals the governance, risk and disclosure requirements banks can expect over time.

Two foundational principles run through it. Sequencing means banks are addressed first, then insurers, then microfinance institutions, because banks hold more than 96% of financial-sector assets. Proportionality means new requirements are calibrated to each institution’s size, complexity and risk profile.

The two pillars

The strategy is organised around two interlinked pillars, with capacity building as a cross-cutting enabler.

Pillar	Meaning
Risk	Managing climate-related and environmental financial risks
Opportunity	Mobilising green finance

The risk pillar is what the binding CBJ Climate Risk Management Regulations No. 2 of 2025 later turned into hard rules. The opportunity pillar is where the 30% figure lives.

The 30%, stated correctly

Here is what the strategy actually says. The Central Bank would consider it a good outcome if the total volume of green financing increased by around 30% over the five years to the end of 2028. The document then states, in its own words, that this is by no means a binding target, because the actual growth of green finance also depends on demand-side factors beyond the Central Bank’s mandate.

Two details make the correct reading clear. First, it is a 30% increase in the volume, or flow, of green finance, not a share of the portfolio. Second, it is measured from a low base of around 3.1% of banks’ loan portfolios in 2023, a figure that ranged widely across individual banks. The Central Bank has said it will revise this baseline once the national green taxonomy is adopted.

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The strategy asks green finance to grow. It does not order portfolios to be one-third green. The precise wording is the difference between a direction of travel and a destination.

What the strategy signals next

Beyond the 30%, the strategy is a useful map of what is coming. It commits the Central Bank to a national green taxonomy, a green loan framework, a green credit guarantee programme, and standardised disclosure templates, and it flags the intent to broaden from green finance to full ESG and sustainable finance over time. It also contains a dedicated chapter on sustainable Islamic finance, including green sukuk. For a bank, the strategy is best read as advance notice of the requirements to plan for.

How ESGweise helps

ESGweise helps banks respond to the Green Finance Strategy on both pillars. On risk, we support the climate-risk framework the 2025 regulation requires. On opportunity, we help build the greenhouse gas and green-finance measurement that lets a bank track and grow green lending credibly, and prepare for the taxonomy and disclosure requirements the strategy foreshadows. See our strategy and carbon accounting services.

Conclusion

Jordan’s Green Finance Strategy 2023-2028 is a two-pillar roadmap of risk and opportunity, and a clear signal of the requirements banks can expect. Its most quoted figure, the 30%, is a non-binding expectation to grow the volume of green finance by around 30% by the end of 2028 from a base of roughly 3%. It is not a portfolio target. Reading it correctly keeps a bank’s strategy grounded in what the regulation actually asks, rather than in a stronger claim it never made.