EIB's new social and environmental standards to be approved next week

The European Investment Bank’s Board is expected to approve a new Environmental and Social Sustainability Framework on 2 February 2022. Recourse has joined over 20 other CSOs in calling on the Board to insist the EIB strengthens the current draft which is weak in a number of vital areas, including on financial intermediary lending.

It is of utmost importance for the EIB to adopt a stronger set of policies and standards guiding its future operations, especially at a time when the EIB is creating a development branch and undergoing a transformation into the “EU Climate Bank”.

The current draft ESSF fails to uphold sufficient improvements to prevent harm in the following key areas:

• protection and promotion of human rights;
• transparency and environmental due diligence of financial intermediaries’ investments; and
• keeping particularly vulnerable ecosystems off-limits for investments and ensuring appropriate assessments of project impacts on protected and internationally recognised areas beyond the EU, EFTA and enlargement countries.