Climate Change / Environmental and Social Considerations

• JBIC Guidelines for Confirmation of Environmental and Social Considerations (Environmental Guidelines)

JBIC established "Japan Bank for International Cooperation Guidelines for Confirmation of Environmental and Social Considerations" on April 1, 2002, as unified guidelines of two environmental guidelines applied to International Financial Operations and Overseas Economic Cooperation Operations respectively. The Guidelines has been implemented from October 1, 2003.

• In preparing the guidelines, JBIC took care to ensure procedural transparency by inviting comments from the general public for a period of two months and by holding six public consultation forums, one of them in the prefecture, to exchange views with participants representing a broad spectrum of civil society. To date, JBIC has received 40 comments and shared views with about 350 participants from all walks of life, including opinion leaders, NGO members and industry representatives. The proceedings of the forums (Japanese only) and the guidelines themselves are available on the JBIC website.
• The guidelines placed a premium on participation by such stakeholders as local community inhabitants who will be affected by the project. They require the project executor to solicit stakeholders' participation from the project planning stage. The checklist to be confirmed by JBIC now includes social considerations pertaining to resettlement, indigenous people and women. Also more strengthened than in the previous guidelines is a provision on information disclosure. JBIC is required to make public such items as the category classification of the project prior to loan approval.
• The guidelines were established on April 1, 2002, and have been fully implemented since October 1, 2003. The guidelines will be applied to the projects for which a substantive loan request is made in October 2003 and later. The projects for which an approval of loan was already given or a substantive loan request was made before October 2003, the previous "Environmental Guidelines for International Financial Operations", "JBIC Environmental Guidelines for ODA loans" or the relevant will be applied. However, in advance of the full implementation, JBIC has been implementing since October 2002 the key items set forth in the guidelines, including the checklist, category classification, its disclosure, and the disclosure of environmental review.

Report on Implementation of the JBIC Guidelines for Confirmation of Environmental and Social Considerations (International Financial Operations) [PDF/626KB] Survey on the Implementation Status of the Japan Bank for International Cooperation Guidelines for Confirmation of Environmental and Social Considerations (Overseas Economic Cooperation Operations) [PDF/395KB]