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Equator Principles The Equator Principles are voluntary guidelines drawn up by banks operating in the field of international project financing. In 2003, with support from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), an agency of the World Bank, they were prepared and signed by ten lending banks operating at international level and today are adopted by approximately 70 companies worldwide. The Equator Principles are intended to protect: - natural resources,
- health and human rights,
- cultural properties and biodiversity.
The principles are based on the environmental and social standards of the World Bank and apply to all financing projects of over 10 million dollars. After careful screening, projects are classified according to their level of social and environmental risk, as follows: | Category A (high) | projects with potential significant adverse environmental or social impacts that are diverse, irreversible or unprecedented | | Category B (medium) | projects with potential limited adverse environmental or social impacts that are few in number, generally site-specific, largely reversible and readily addressed through mitigation measures | | Category C
(low) | projects with minimal or no social or environmental impacts | For projects that are classified as A or B category, the customer has to prepare a social and environmental assessment and draft an Action Plan covering the potential critical points of the project. Intesa Sanpaolo adopted the Equator Principles in 2006 and has undertaken to integrate the principles into internal project management processes.To this end an inter-departmental working group coordinated by the Corporate Social Responsibility Unit was set up in December 2008, made up of representatives of the departments most involved in Project Financing transactions, supported by an external partner. In June 2010 the working group developed an internal policy that provides operational guidelines for the correct application of the Principles. The classification of projects based on three levels of risk and the choice of a specific path (PDF - 51 Kb), according to the assigned category, requires transparent and immediate involvement of our customers, to whom we offer ample support to mitigate the identified risks. The policy, incorporated in the Group’s regulations was made accessible to the foreign offices of Banca IMI (London, New York and Hong Kong hubs) and published in the Intranet policies section. To facilitate the implementation of the policy in all its parts, a training course was set up at the beginning of 2010 and is currently on-going in Italy and abroad. This includes a highly technical part dedicated to the specialists in Project Finance, Advisory and Export Finance. The commitment in the implementation of the Principles is part of a strategic development strategy in the Bank's credit activities, and has increasingly allowed for more scrupulous control over this field and the dissemination of a higher sensitivity. Projects assessed according to the Equator Principles
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