environmental tools for financial intermediaries

When the EBRD invests via a financial intermediary (FI), the FI must implement the Bank's environmental and social procedures. For many FIs, this is the first time they integrate environmental and social considerations into their lending and investment procedures. To help FIs integrate the bank's procedures the EBRD has developed two supporting mechanisms - the environmental and social risk management manual and training programmes.

Training programmes

EBRD consultants regularly run workshops where FI staff are taught how to conduct environmental and social due diligence on SMEs. The training takes place on location and is funded by the EBRD.

The EBRD Environmental and Social Risk Management Manual

The EBRD’s Environment and Social Risk Management Manual (E-manual) is developed to help the Bank’s financial partners implement the EBRD’s environmental and social procedures.

The English version of the E-manual has recently been updated to be fully consistent with EBRD’s Performance Requirement (PR) 9 for Financial Intermediaries (FIs). PR9 is designed to assist FIs in implementing the Bank’s requirement to promote sustainable development as mandated in the EBRD’s 2008 Environmental and Social Policy.

Version 4 of the manual now contains detailed procedures and more practical guidance for all types of FIs on environmental and social issues and also explains how to perform a site visit, how to engage environmental consultants, and much more.

Environmental and Social Risk Management Manual (4.8Mb)

The manual is contained in self-extracting zip file, to use it:

• Right click the link and select 'Save target as..'
• If the following message appears "The publisher could not be verified. Are you sure you want to run this software?", click "Run"
• Choose the folder where the file should be saved and select OK
• Double-click on the file and, when prompted, choose the folder where extracted files should be saved
• Open folder and click on "00Welcome V4"
• The manual will open in Adobe Acrobat

Version 3 (November 2005) is still available in the following languages: Bulgarian; Czech; Latvian; Lithuanian; Polish; Romanian and Russian.

Environmental and social risk categorisation list

This checklist provides a guide to the typical level of inherent environmental and social risk related particularly to a business activity, to assist staff in judging the appropriate level of environmental and social investigation that should be carried out.

Checklist  (0.2Mb)

Sub-sectoral guidelines

The EBRD has developed a set of sub-sectoral environmental guidelines to assist credit/investment officers in local financial institutions and other non-environmental experts. They are designed to help in identifying major environmental activity risks, important management actions, and essential aspects of environmental due diligence. The guidelines are not part of the Bank's Environmental Procedures and are used as guidance only.

Sub-sectoral guidelines

Sub-sectoral guidelines - 2003 policy