CIAO DATE: 12/2014
August 2014
Centre for International Governance Innovation
The Equator Principles (EP) are a voluntary code of guidelines for financial institutions to report on environmental and social issues of projects. This paper examines how often members of the EP report and what content should be disclosed. Using institutional theory as the theoretical framework for the analysis, seven criteria (annual reporting, disclosure of screened transactions, the categorization of projects with respect to their assessment status, risk category, sector, region and implementation experience ) were used to test whether members report according to the EP’s guidelines. Results highlighted challenges with reporting compliance and transparency. To counter these obstacles, this paper recommends strategies such as enforcement, standardization reporting or third party validation to increase the adherence to and the transparency of the EP reporting.
Resource link: Equator Principles Reporting: Do Financial Institutions meet their Goals? [PDF] - 449K