Caixa Economica Federal (CEF) Formally Adopts the Equator Principles

On 18 November 2009, Caixa Economica Federal (CEF) formally announced that it would be adopting the Equator Principles. The Equator Principles are a set of environmental and social benchmarks for managing environmental and social issues in development project finance globally. The principles were modeled on the environmental standards of the World Bank and the social policies of the International Finance Corporation (IFC). By adopting the Equator Principles, CEF commits itself to integrating social and environmental risk management commitments into its internal policies, procedures and processes so as to better mitigate, document and monitor the credit risks and reputations risk associated with financing development projects with a threshold of USD 10 million. CEF has also become a member of the Business and Biodiversity Initiative, which aims to more fully engage the private sector in achieving the objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity. CEF is the first financial institution in Latin America to join the Initiative. Vice-president of CEF, Jorge Hereda stated that “These are good examples of the importance of how financial institutions can promote their sustainable development by ensuring that social and environmental variables are taken into account in their investment decisions”. (From www.equator-principles.com)TOP