IDB launches 2021 Sustainability Report focused on integrated climate action

Last year, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) financed a record US$4.5 billion in activities related to climate change, according to its 2021 Sustainability Report.

These resources, which account for 30 per cent of the bank’s total annual approvals, are benefiting the region through loans, grants, technical cooperation, guarantees, and equity investments.

The report highlights IDB’s unique integrated approach to sustainability in its governance, strategy, policies, and project cycle, leading climate action devoted to jobs generation and socioeconomic benefits, disaster-risk management and resilience, biodiversity, and innovative financing tools under a gender and diversity-inclusion focus.

“In today’s IDB, we believe in the urgent need to move past climate change diagnosis and significantly ramp up our efforts to tackle it. If we and our member countries do so, Latin America and the Caribbean is poised to become the world leader in addressing an issue that knows no borders,” IDB President Mauricio Claver-Carone said.

The report showcases projects and publications on sustainable development in the region financed and coproduced by IDB. It highlights the consistent decrease in the greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint of the bank’s lending portfolio, among other metrics, its projects’ disaster and climate change risks, and the application of its environmental and social policies.

In 2021, the IDB achieved important milestones under its sustainability framework. At COP26 (United Nations Climate Change Conference) in Glasgow, the bank announced its commitment to align all operations with the Paris Agreement starting in 2023, and to provide $24 billion in climate and green financing during the 2022–2025 timeframe.

Additionally, multilateral development banks (MDBs), led by IDB at COP26, released a joint statement on Nature, People, and Planet.

The document commits to mainstream nature into policies, analysis, and investments.

Likewise, IDB’s new Environmental and Social Policy Framework (ESPF) took effect on November 1, 2021, setting ambitious new standards to help clients tackle environmental and social issues. IDB is leading the development of a regional platform on climate change for finance ministries, a network to promote a shared understanding of their role in the climate agenda.

The IDB’s Board of Directors also approved the Amazon Initiative, devoted to mobilising public and private resources to forge and implement sustainable development models based on human capital, natural wealth, and the cultural heritage of the Amazon region.

The report includes a Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) annex that sets global standards for sustainability reporting, relying on best practices for reporting on a range of economic, environmental, and social impacts.

Climate change action is one of the priority areas of Vision 2025: Reinvest in the Americas, IDB’s blueprint for Latin America and the Caribbean’s post-pandemic recovery and sustainable and inclusive growth.