Environmental standards loom ever larger in banks' lending decisions, by Susanne Bergius, ENDS Report, December 2008
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60 Second Profile on the Equator Principles, Good Practice Newsletter from ICMM, December 2008

Ecology Stamp on Project Finance, by Susanne Bergius, Handelsblatt, 16 July 2008 (in German)

Banks increase their environmental requirements

Promoting Greater Responsibility in Project Financing by Natasha Cappon, Canada, Spring, 2008

China to bring in green loan benchmark, 25 January, 2008

A Question of Principles, Infrastructure Magazine, by Kimberley Gaskin, June 2007

Citigroup to scale up its green spending,The Financial Times, 8 May 2007.

Leaders challenge 'business as usual', Guardian, 6 November 2006

Financial Sector Responsibility

Building a better world (for investors and whales), The Banker, 3 July 2006

Update on the Equator Principles - 2006 Revision, Allens Arthur Robinson, August 2006

The Miami Herald July 31, 2006.

Building sustainability into syndication, Project Finance - July/August 2006

For Citigroup, Greening Starts With Listening

For people and planet, San Francisco Chronicle, 4 April 2006

Conservation You Can Bank On (Christopher Wright) (PDF - 91k)

'A New Environment', Legal Week 2 February 2006 (Paul Watchman and Charles July of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer) (PDF - 2572k)

'Banks Business and Human Rights' (2006) 2 JIBFL 46 (Paul Watchman of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer) (PDF - 59k)

Polluters Clean Up Act to Attract Lenders, The Moscow Times, 12 October 2005

The Equator Principles - guidelines for responsible project financing, Focus, Allens Arthur Robinson, August 2005 (PDF - 122k)

Corporate Green, Washington Post, 11 May 2005

Taking The Earth Into Account, Time Europe, 9 May 2005

Principles in Question, The Banker, March 2005 (PDF - 97k)

Banking on the future, Euromoney Syndicated Lending Handbook 2005, December 2004 (PDF - 38k)

A Matter of Principles, Global Finance, January 2005

Principle Finance, Euromoney, October 2004

Putting principles into practice, Environmental Finance, June 2004

'Greening' of financial sector gathering speed, Financial Times, 4 June 2004

"Equator - Risk and Sustainability," from Project Finance International, 2004 Yearbook. (PDF - 429k)

NGOs Bring Bank Scrutiny Back on Track, Ethical Corporation Online, 2 May 2004

Banks contest ban proposed for coal and oil extraction, Financial Times, 5 April 2004

A Matter of Principal, Project Finance, 3 March 2004

The Equator Principles: a milestone or just good PR?, Global Agenda, 26 January 2004

Mizuho To Adopt Environmental Standards In Project Financing, CNNfn, 26 October 2003

Dexia adhère aux "Equator principles", La Tribune, 22 September 2003 (in French)

Western Banks Set Standards for Eco-Friendly Lending. Japanese Banks Far Behind. NGO Keeping Close Watch, Nikkei, 5 September 2003

A point of principle, Global Finance, July 2003

Equator Principles — Why Indian Banks Too Should be Guided by Them, The Hindu, 25 July 2003

Project finance — Standards for Lending, Financial Mail, 25 July 2003

Financiers must meet criteria, Business Day, 14 July 2003

Banks agree new loan guidelines, Ethical Performance, July 2003

Principled finance?, Project Finance, June 2003 Cover Story

Banks club together to turn their notes green, The Age, 22 June 2003

Nikkei Financial Daily, 11 June 2003 (in Japanese - PDF)

Banks' green pledge earns mixed response, swissinfo, 10 June 2003

Greening the banks, The Economist, 7-13 June 2003

Leading banks sign up to project finance principles, Environmental Finance, 6 June 2003

Bancos adotam princípios de responsabilidade social, Valor Econômico, 5 June 2003 (in Portuguese)

Zehn Banken werden zu Umweltschützern, Die Tageszeitung, 5 June 2003 (in German)

Major Banks Endorse Equator Principles, The Peninsula, Qatar, 5 June 2003

The 'Equator Principles' adopted by leading banks, The Times of India, 5 June 2003

Westpac's principles, Australian Financial Review, 5 June 2003

Loan rules with an eye on nature, International Herald Tribune, 5 June 2003

10 global banks endorse socially responsible "Equator Principles", Agence France Presse, 5 June 2003

"THE FLIP SIDE", CNN, 4 June 2003 (transcript)

IFC Head's Remarks at Equator Principles Press Conference, 4 June 2003

Banks sign up for responsible lending accord, Financial Times, 4 June 2003

Banks Accept Environmental Rules, The Wall Street Journal, 4 June 2003

Banks in drive for project principles, Financial Times, 9 April 2003

Four banks adopt IFC agreement, Financial Times, 7 April 2003

Faced with mounting pressure from protest groups, 10 of the world's leading banks have agreed to adhere to international environmental and social-impact standards when financing dams, power plants, pipelines and other infrastructure projects.

Citigroup Inc., ABN Amro Bank N.V., WestLB AG, Barclays PLC, Credit Suisse First Boston and five other banks plan to announce Wednesday that they'll embrace strict - but voluntary - standards developed by the World Bank's International Finance Corp. to prevent massive construction efforts from poisoning the air and water, denuding forests, and destroying the livelihoods of locals who get in the way. While the banks say the standards will apply all over the world, they are aimed mainly at projects in developing nations, where government regulators are often ill-equipped, or unwilling, to mitigate the potential side-effects of such foreign-backed initiatives.

The banks "believe this will lead to more secure investments on the part of our customers and safer loans on the part of the banks," said Chris Beale, head of Citigroup's global project-finance business. "Because if you finance something that's dirty or something that harms people, there's a likelihood that the host government or local people will interfere with it or even take it away from you."

Several more large banks are expected sign up in the coming weeks, and supporters believe the guidelines, dubbed the "Equator Principles," will become the industry standard within a couple years. The participating banks provided some $9.12 billion in loans for infrastructure projects last year, according to Dealogic, a London-based data provider. The reach of the banks' decision is likely to exceed their direct loans because they generally organize syndicates involving several lenders.

But they are also among the biggest targets for environmental and social activists who argue their loans have sometimes contributed to the contamination and impoverishment of the developing world. One participating bank, Germany's WestLB, for instance, is in a running dispute with environmentalists over an oil pipeline project in Ecuador.

Citigroup, which also supports the Ecuador project with a letter of credit, is an even-more frequent target of activists. The Rainforest Action Network, a San Francisco-based environmental group, initiated a campaign against Citigroup about three years ago, blaming the bank for rainforest destruction, climate change, and the disruption of the lives of indigenous peoples, said Ilyse Hogue, the global finance campaign director.

The not-for-profit group has persuaded supporters to cut up their Citigroup credit cards and mail them back to the company, and pressured college students not to sign up for the cards at all. Last winter, it even hung a large banner across from Citigroup's headquarters accusing it of "banking on" global warming and forest destruction. Citigroup opened a dialogue with the group prior to its 2003 annual meeting, where Rainforest Action Network was scheduled to introduce shareholder proposals related to environmental policies.

"We're glad to see banks responding to pressure that's been brought on them," said Ms. Hogue. "But I think that you'll find broad consensus around the NGO [nongovernmental organization] community that the Equator Principles don't go far enough. The loopholes are wide open enough for bulldozers to move through." Ms. Hogue criticized the initiative for not setting up "no-go zones" for highly endangered regions and for lacking a monitoring and enforcement mechanism, among other things.

Other activists applauded the banks' decision, but wondered aloud how diligently it will be implemented. They noted that there is no enforcement mechanism forcing the banks to comply, other than the public pressure that comes with a public promise. "There's a big question about how are they going to ensure this isn't just public relations, that this is really carried out effectively in these big project-finance operations they've been involved in," said Bruce Rich, director of international programs at Environmental Defense, a U.S. advocacy and research organization.

For their part, the banks are betting the standards will become the industry norm, making it easier for them to keep their promises without fear of losing customers to competitors willing to finance projects the signatories now might avoid.

"Those banks who are seriously interested in project finance and long-term lending to emerging markets will clearly adopt these principles over the medium term," said Peter Woicke, head of the IFC, which, as a public institution, came under pressure to meet higher standards even before the commercial banks did.

Under the new guidelines, projects are grouped into categories according to the environmental and social risks they entail. Some require no special consideration. Some simply require engineers to minimize pollution output. But before they lend for the riskiest projects - say, a major dam or open-pit mine - banks would require environmental impact assessments, public consultations and increased transparency from the borrower.

At least some of the signatories were reluctant to portray their participation as a concession that their current practices had hurt the environment or local citizens. "The whole area of project financing has received a lot of attention over the past couple of years from the media and from pressure groups," said a spokeswoman for Barclays. The new initiatives, she said, "don't change things for Barclays. It just externally acknowledges what we're already doing."