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Issue 3, March 2004 Overseas Private Investment Corporation Adopts Elements of World Commission on Dams, Issues New Forests Policies and Will Make Public Projects Declined on Environmental Grounds
OPIC already has a categorical prohibition that prevents it from financing or insuring large dams, and is now the first public financing body to adopt certain elements of the World Commission on Dams. The revised forest policy means that OPIC today would clearly be prohibited from investing in Enron’s Bolivia Brazil Cuiba gas pipeline. OPIC came under fire in 2002 for financing the Cuiba pipeline, which cuts through
OPIC has also confirmed that it will make public all projects it turns down on environmental grounds in its Annual Environmental Report starting this year. The 2003 report will be online in early April.
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development Releases New Environmental Accounting Protocols
On Feb. 13, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) announced new guidelines on eco-efficiency indicators that link the environmental performance of corporations to their financial performance. The “Manual for the Preparers and Users of Eco-efficiency Indicators” is one of the first publications in the field of corporate environmental accounting to standardize the presentation and disclosure of a company’s environmental performance and how this relates to financial results. The guidelines describe a method for providing systematic and consistent information on environmental performance over time. More than 50 tables provide an array of pertinent data, including net caloric values for various energy products, electricity-derived CO2 emission factors by region, the ozone depletion potential of controlled substances and lists of hazardous characteristics excerpted from the 1989 Basel Convention on the control of transboundary movements of hazardous wastes. The guidelines have been adopted by Ciba Specialty Chemicals, making it the first multinational company to base its environmental reporting on the UNCTAD model.
JP Morgan Chase to Create Environmental Policy, Citigroup Amends Credit Policy After months of dialogue with Friends of the Earth and other representatives of the socially responsible community, JP Morgan Chase has committed to establishing global policies and procedures regarding environmental issues. JP Morgan will create a new senior-level position to lead a firm-wide committee in this effort. Both the committee and the new Director of Environmental Affairs will report to the Public Policy Committee of the Board of Directors, which will ultimately oversee the environmental reforms of the bank. In related news, Citigroup recently amended its Global Corporate and Investment Bank credit policy to make it fully consistent with the Equator Principles, a set of standards modeled on the social and environmental safeguard policies of the World Bank’s private sector lending arm – the International Finance Corporation. Citigroup will also hire a Senior Environmental and Social Risk Director to implement the Equator Principles.
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