Initiative on environmental practices launched for financial institutions
A three-year programme to ensure best environmental practices by financial institutions has been launched in Accra.
The programme will also ensure that the institutions and their customers deal responsibly with health, safety and product quality issues.The initiative, dubbed the “Environmental and Social Risk Management (ESRM) Ghana”, is being facilitated by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, in collaboration with the Bank of Ghana. The rest are the Ghana Bankers Association and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with funding from Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs.MeetingAt a stakeholders meeting to launch the ESRM Ghana programme in Accra last Thursday, representatives of the various stakeholders agreed that the initiative would promote sustainable banking and finance in the country.The Country Manager of IFC Ghana, Mr Ronke Ogunsulire, said, “Business activities must not harm the people or the environment but rather benefit them.”According to him, financial institutions are favourably placed to catalyse change and enable market transformation through their ability to allocate capital to influence business behaviours.SignificanceThe Second Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Johnson Asiama, in a remark said sustainable banking was gradually gaining prominence across the globe, with increasing realisation that preserving the environment was vital for maintaining sustained growth of economies.He said it was, therefore, incumbent on financial institutions to have social and environmental risk management programmes imbedded in their operations.The Head of Cooperations of the Swiss State Secretariats for Economic Affairs, Mr Matthias Feldmann, said the Swiss government was committed to supporting the initiative, adding that his government invested $20 million in Ghana annually.ESRMThe ESRM Programme Officer at the IFC, Ms Damilola Sobo Smith, said Ghana was the third African country after Kenya and Nigeria to embrace the initiative.Mr Smith indicated that companies with clean and efficient operations were more competitive and profitable.Additionally, she said financial institutions that proactively managed environmental risks enhanced their image in the financial sector and were more likely to attract funding in the international market.A private consultant, Ms Charlotte Ntim, introduced the participants to the Ghana Climate Innovation Centre (GCIC), a technology hub designed to help more than 100 local clean technology businesses to develop and commercialise innovative solutions to climate change.The GCIC is a World Bank Group project being undertaken in Ghana in partnership with Ashesi University, the governments of Denmark and the Netherlands and Ghana’s Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI). Ms Ntim said GCIC, over the next 10 years, would contribute to the production of clean energy and the mitigation of up to 660,000 tonnes of CO2, the equivalent of the emissions of almost 140,000 cars for one year.
