Equator Principles (EPs)

Accountability Counsel works closely with BankTrack and other partners to strengthen accountability and access to remedy through the EPs. There is currently no centralized accountability office for Equator Principles Financial Institutions (EPFIs) and many of these institutions do not have a mechanism to address harms caused by their financing. Instead, they rely on borrowers to take on this responsibility.

Engagement with the Equator Principles Association

After years of advocacy, civil society met with the Equator Principles Association (EPA) steering committee on 28 January, 2016 in London to once again emphasize the importance of transparency and respect for human rights and the environment. Accountability Counsel participated in the meeting, raising questions about the lack of an EP accountability office. Although there were some commitments to improve transparency and reporting, the EPA did not commit to creating a grievance mechanism. In subsequent calls with the EPA, we have continued to emphasize the need for a robust accountability office.

EP4 Equator Principles Revision Process

Accountability Counsel is currently participating in the Equator Principles revision process, which will create the fourth version of the EPs – EP4. This initiative grew out of the 2017 Equator Banks, Act! campaign, which Accountability Counsel supported, and a series of problematic projects financed by EPFIs, including the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) project. The EPA committed to reviewing the EPs to address issues including human rights, climate change, the rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the scope of applicability. We have been providing input to the EPA, both in our individual capacity and as a larger group of CSO stakeholders, to advise on the strengths and weaknesses of the EPs’ policies and procedures. We have trained our focus on the need to increase transparency and accountability at the EPs, specifically calling out the lack of an accountability office and the failure of the EPs to cover all financial products within an EPFI’s portfolio. We have additionally called on the EPA to ensure that the EP4 process is inclusive of a wide variety of stakeholder voices. Alongside our partners at BankTrack, Accountability Counsel contributed to the drafting of the Open Letter to the Equator Principles Financial Institutions, calling on EPFIs to respect human rights, strengthen transparency, and ensure access to remedy through the institution of a legitimate, independent complaints mechanism.

On 16 October, 2018, Accountability Counsel participated in a meeting in Washington, DC with CSO partners, Indigenous leaders, and EPFIs, which raised important points on the importance of accountability for harm caused by EPFIs. The meeting was held on the sidelines of the 2018 Equator Principles Annual Meeting in DC. During the Annual Meeting, attendees recognized the need for improvement in several areas not currently explicitly included in the targeted EP4 review, including accountability and grievance handling.

In December 2018, the EPA released a summary report of the initial round of stakeholder feedback on the EPs and review process that mentioned many of our concerns. The EPA released the latest draft of the EPs for public comment in June 2019. In August 2019, Accountability Counsel and 78 global partners submitted a joint statement to the EPA. The submission noted that the EPs’ reliance on project-level grievance mechanisms was insufficient to ensure accountability and urged the EPA to develop a central accountability mechanism that could receive complaints stemming from an EPFI’s failure to adhere to the EPs. More information about the review process and the latest draft can be found here. The final version of EP4 will be released in late 2019.

Outreach to EPFIs

Accountability Counsel continues to seek new opportunities to work with EPFIs individually to develop new robust and effective mechanisms. Accountability Counsel is a member of the external stakeholder working group advising the multinational bank ANZ as it reviews and strengthen its human rights policies and processes. As a part of this review, ANZ is developing a grievance mechanism for communities. Further, as a result of advocacy from Accountability Counsel and other civil society partners, the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM), an EPFI, created the Environmental and Social Project Information and Concerns Form.