Environmental and Social Loan Policies (ESLP)
Garanti Bank SA has identified sustainability as one of its strategic priorities, focusing on supporting its clients in the transition toward a more sustainable future, mitigating climate change, fostering inclusive growth, and ensuring the efficient use of natural resources.
Climate change is one of the great challenges facing humanity and requires large volumes of investment. Clients, markets, and society as a whole not only expect large companies to create value, but also to contribute positively to society.
Garanti Bank SA recognizes its impact on the environment and society. Therefore, it seeks to contribute to sustainable development by mitigating environmental and social impacts, both directly, through the responsible use of natural resources and relationships with stakeholders; and indirectly, through the projects it finances.
For this reason, this standard, publicly known as the Environmental and Social Loan Standard (hereafter, “the Standard”) has been established to identify activities and sectors that, while contributing to economic growth and social progress, can also have significant environmental and/or social impacts. For the full version please click here.
The Standard derives from Garanti Bank SA’s General Sustainability Policy, which sets forth the primary principles, objectives, and guidelines for sustainable development management and control.
The Standard aims to establish criteria for identifying, evaluating, and monitoring activities with environmental and/or social impacts common to all sectors, as well as activities with high environmental and/or social impacts specific to the mining, agribusiness, energy, infrastructure, and defense sectors. These criteria include restrictions specific to sectors identified due to their high potential for environmental and social impacts, as well as restrictions common to all sectors, such as prohibited activities or activities requiring special attention.
The restrictions in sections 5. Prohibited Activities and 6. Activities Requiring Special Attention of the Standard apply to all legal entities within Garanti BBVA, where applicable, jointly across all sectors and/or sector-specific.
- Defense Sector: Prohibited activities in this sector apply to clients across all segments considered defense and security companies (e.g., entities involved in manufacturing, marketing, or maintaining defense and security materials and their transactions), as well as their operations, that engage in prohibited activities.
- Mining Sector: Clients with mining assets whose primary activities include exploration, development or exploitation of those assets (insofar as they engage in a prohibited or special attention activity).
- Agribusiness Sector: Clients whose primary activity is soil cultivation, forest management, livestock farming and fishing (as long as they engage in a prohibited or special attention activity). This includes high-impact products such as palm oil, soybeans, cocoa, coffee, cotton, tobacco, beef, rubber, intensive aquaculture and forest products such as paper and pulp. Activities not covered for the purposes of this Standard include the manufacture or distribution of agricultural machinery, pesticides and fertilizers, the manufacture of processed food and beverages and the distribution of food and beverages.
- Energy Sector: Clients who own energy assets and whose primary activity is the exploration, development or exploitation of these assets (as long as they engage in a prohibited or special attention activity). Energy assets include the exploration, production, transportation and refining of oil and gas, renewable energy projects (wind, solar, hydroelectric, biomass and biofuels), thermal power generation plants (combined gas cycles and coal plants) and the transmission and distribution of electricity.
- Infrastructure Sector: New construction projects for transport infrastructure (highways, ports, terminals, airports, metro, tram and railway), environmental (waste and water management -treatment, management and distribution-), social (educational and health) and telecommunications (communication cables and networks and data centres) - as long as they involve a prohibited activity or a special attention activity.
For prohibited activities and activities that require special attention the full version of the standard should be searched.
