Our environmental and social review process

At Export Finance Australia, we apply best-practice environmental and social standards in our risk assessment of transactions. This includes applying two globally recognised approaches:

• the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Recommendation of the Council on Common Approaches for Officially Supported Export Credits and Environmental and Social Due Diligence (the Common Approaches)
• the Equator Principles, an approach used by many financial institutions to manage environmental and social risk in projects.

As outlined in detail in our Policy and Procedure, we are committed to:

• fulfilling our responsibility to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms
• supporting the objectives of the 2015 Paris Agreement and acknowledging the role that we can play in improving the availability of climate-related information
• seeking to support projects that reduce emissions and implementing the best available technology, while having an appropriate climate change transition plan
• supporting conservation, including the aim of enhancing the evidence base for research and decisions relating to biodiversity
• considering social impacts, including related to gender, indigenous persons and disadvantaged and vulnerable groups
• seeking to identify and support projects that are environmentally beneficial, including clean, alternative and renewable energy projects. We can offer more flexible terms and conditions to encourage the development of these types of projects.

Our Policy and Procedure

Export Finance Australia has established a clear and transparent Environmental and Social Review Policy and implementing Procedure:

• our Policy for environmental and social review of transactions (Policy) outlines the principles that we apply to meet our corporate values
• our Procedure for environmental and social review of transactions outlines how we implement this Policy. The Procedure incorporates a checklist to ensure a consistent review approach.

We screen transactions for their environmental and social risk in line with our Policy and Procedure (as per the diagram below) and undertake a risk evaluation where any potential for environmental and/or social risk is identified. More details on the risk evaluation may be found in our Policy and Procedure documents. For projects located in Australia, we consider our benchmark to have been met if relevant Australian Government approvals have been obtained.