The National Green Finance Strategy and Action Plan has entered into force

Under Presidential Circular No. 2026/8, signed by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and published in the Official Gazette on 4 July 2026, the "National Green Finance Strategy and Action Plan (2026–2029)" has been formally communicated to all public institutions and organizations in the country, with these bodies instructed to fulfil the duties and responsibilities assigned to them under the Plan. The full text of the Strategy, prepared under the coordination of the Ministry of Treasury and Finance together with regulatory authorities, sector representatives and market participants, can be accessed via the Ministry's official website (www.hmb.gov.tr). SusdeX's briefing and assessment of the significance for institutions is set out below.

The National Green Finance Strategy and Action Plan covers the 2026–2029 period and consists of three aims, 11 targets and 45 actions. The first aim is "establishing the infrastructure necessary for a transparent and measurable green finance ecosystem." The five targets under this aim include: completing the long-awaited Turkish Green Taxonomy (targeted for 2026, to be issued as a regulation by the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change in coordination with the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources, the Ministry of Treasury and Finance, the Ministry of Industry and Technology, the Presidency's Strategy and Budget Directorate, BDDK, SEDDK, SPK, TCMB and TÜİK); broadening the scope of banks' Green Asset Ratio application so that its criteria are aligned with the forthcoming Taxonomy; new legislation to encourage insurance companies to invest in green assets; a sustainability guide for the payment institutions sector; a Climate Finance Strategy aimed at giving investors clear signals; periodic review of portfolio management companies' compliance with the Principles of Responsible Investment; integrating green budgeting practices into the preparation and execution of the central government budget; and assessing whether the Public Procurement Law should be revised to support green and innovative public procurement. The same aim also covers the establishment of supporting infrastructure such as advisory, verification and assurance systems; the wider use of the Turkish Sustainability Reporting Standards (TSRS) issued by KGK; strengthening assurance-audit capacity (including the planned Sustainability Assurance Audit Standard 5000); a mechanism enabling banks and financial institutions to access facility-level verified emissions data; common reporting templates across regulators; and — under Target 1.5 — a guide to be jointly prepared by BDDK, SEDDK and SPK, explicitly aimed at preventing greenwashing.

The National Green Finance Strategy and Action Plan covers the 2026–2029 period and consists of three aims, 11 targets and 45 actions. The first aim is "establishing the infrastructure necessary for a transparent and measurable green finance ecosystem." The five targets under this aim include: completing the long-awaited Turkish Green Taxonomy (targeted for 2026, to be issued as a regulation by the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change in coordination with the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources, the Ministry of Treasury and Finance, the Ministry of Industry and Technology, the Presidency's Strategy and Budget Directorate, BDDK, SEDDK, SPK, TCMB and TÜİK); broadening the scope of banks' Green Asset Ratio application so that its criteria are aligned with the forthcoming Taxonomy; new legislation to encourage insurance companies to invest in green assets; a sustainability guide for the payment institutions sector; a Climate Finance Strategy aimed at giving investors clear signals; periodic review of portfolio management companies' compliance with the Principles of Responsible Investment; integrating green budgeting practices into the preparation and execution of the central government budget; and assessing whether the Public Procurement Law should be revised to support green and innovative public procurement. The same aim also covers the establishment of supporting infrastructure such as advisory, verification and assurance systems; the wider use of the Turkish Sustainability Reporting Standards (TSRS) issued by KGK; strengthening assurance-audit capacity (including the planned Sustainability Assurance Audit Standard 5000); a mechanism enabling banks and financial institutions to access facility-level verified emissions data; common reporting templates across regulators; and — under Target 1.5 — a guide to be jointly prepared by BDDK, SEDDK and SPK, explicitly aimed at preventing greenwashing.

The second aim focuses on institutional capacity and human resources: training programmes for banking, insurance and capital markets professionals; capacity-building for public institutions that prepare sustainability reports; awareness campaigns on access to green financial instruments for the real sector; workshops for sharing good practices; a guide for correcting misclassification errors in sustainability reporting; building climate and nature risk stress-testing infrastructure at BDDK and TCMB; a national risk management guide covering climate and nature risks for the insurance sector (in cooperation with SEDDK, AFAD and TSB); and, by 2029, systematic climate and nature risk stress tests to be applied across the financial sector as a whole, with results reported to the Treasury every six months.

The third aim targets the creation of market mechanisms for the development of green finance: measuring and monitoring the share of green financial products in the market from 2028 onward; a dedicated green financing mechanism to channel resources toward the 2053 net-zero emissions target; increasing the weight of sustainability-themed funds within state-matching pension funds and the Auto-Enrolment System (OKS) default funds; wider use of sustainability-linked capital market instruments; the inclusion of sustainability-themed issuances within the Treasury's own bond issuance programme; a Green, Sustainable and Social Capital Market Instruments Guide and a Sustainability-Linked Capital Market Instruments Guide to be prepared by SPK; a roadmap for positioning Istanbul Finance Centre as an international hub for sustainable finance; a feasibility study, to be conducted by SEDDK and DASK, on the systematic issuance of catastrophe (CAT) bonds against climate-related risks; the entry into force of the Turkish Emissions Trading System, targeted for 2026; providing flexibility for foreign-currency borrowing for designated green investment areas; prioritizing green finance within publicly subsidized credit; a guarantee mechanism for insurers underwriting companies' emissions-reduction commitments; and incentive mechanisms for green patent applications, to be carried out jointly with the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office and TÜBİTAK.

Under the implementation of the National Green Finance Strategy and Action Plan, banks and insurance companies should expect changes to the Green Asset Ratio and to climate-risk stress-testing infrastructure in 2026–2027. For publicly listed companies, the expansion of TSRS scope and the introduction of mandatory assurance audits are on the agenda. For exporters — particularly those operating in sectors covered by the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) — whether the Turkish Green Taxonomy will be compatible with the EU taxonomy is a matter of importance. Asset managers and pension funds should expect an increasing share allocated to sustainability-themed products. The Strategy does not introduce any new tax or penalty directly; instead, it sets regulators a timetable of deliverables to be completed between 2026 and 2029. In practical terms for market participants, this means being able to anticipate in advance the sequence of forthcoming regulations in taxonomy, reporting and emissions trading.

Two features of this publication stand out for anyone tracking regulatory risk in Turkey. The first is timing: the Green Taxonomy Regulation, the secondary legislation for the Emissions Trading System, and the recalibration of the Green Asset Ratio are all targeted for 2026 — the same year the Circular itself was published — meaning the next twelve months will be unusually intensive for Turkish banks, insurers and issuers in terms of new disclosure and classification obligations. The Strategy explicitly acknowledges the EU taxonomy as the principal international reference point for the Turkish Taxonomy, which can be read as a signal that Turkey is aiming for interoperability with EU rules rather than a wholly domestic standard. The second notable feature is institutional breadth. Where earlier green finance guidance in Turkey — such as BDDK's 2021 sustainable banking strategic plan, SPK's 2022 green and sustainable debt instrument guides, or KGK's 2023 TSRS — typically originated from a single regulator acting more or less independently, this Strategy is explicitly cross-institutional, assigning shared responsibility across at least a dozen institutions and ministries under Treasury's coordination. This is precisely the structure needed to prevent the fragmentation that undermines green finance policy in many emerging markets — where a securities regulator's green bond taxonomy diverges from a banking regulator's green asset definition, creating arbitrage opportunities and confusion for issuers. How well this coordination functions in practice, given the sheer number of actions, deadlines extending to 2029, and the number of institutions with a formal role in the document, will be the true measure of the Strategy's real value.