Environmental and social review

When Atradius Dutch State Business assesses your applications, it will also assess the effect your transactions will have on people and the environment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All transactions over €10 mln and transactions less than €10 mln which have a heightened risk for adverse environmental or social impacts will be subject to an environmental and social review. Atradius will also review the environmental and social consequences of the entire project to which you deliver your transaction. Starting point for the review will be the project sector, location and the technology to be used. We conduct our assessments in accordance with international agreements made in the OECD (the Common Approaches). Read on to learn about our review procedure.

When is an environmental and social impact review required?

We conduct an environmental and social review for all transactions over €10 million as well as for transactions of less than €10 million if they are for sensitive sectors or locations, or if the risk of human rights issues (UN Guiding Principles on business and human rights)  is high.

1. Screening and Classification

When you submit an application for insurance, we will screen it to determine whether an environmental and social review is required. If this is the case, we will classify the related project to determine how extensive the review is to be.

Category A	projects which have significant potential adverse environmental and/or social impacts which will be felt beyond the project’s location we will require you to submit an environmental and social impact assessment and an environmental and social management plan
Category B	projects which have less severe potential adverse environmental and/or social impacts and for which measures can be taken to mitigate them we will require you to submit relevant environmental and social information about the project and an environmental and social management plan.
Category C	projects which have minimal or no potential adverse environmental and/or social impacts we will require you to submit relevant environmental and social information about your company, your buyer and the project.
Category M	refinancing, projects without a fixed location, and existing operations which do not significantly change in output or function we will require you to submit relevant environmental and social information about your company and your buyer as well as general information about the project.
Category E	tool and equipment cover we will require you to submit environmental and social information about your company.

2. Environmental and social review

After we have screened and classified your application, we will conduct an environmental and social review. For projects in the highest risk category we will require an environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA). We will also need an environmental and social management plan (ESMP). We will conduct a substantive assessment in accordance with the World Bank Group international guidelines, known as the IFC Performance Standards and EHS Guidelines.

3. Project publication

We must notify all category A projects on our website at least 30 days prior to issuing an insurance policy for them. On our website we furthermore list all the policies we have issued, along with the environmental and social review classification, if applicable.

4. Final conclusion

After having completed our project review, we will reach a final conclusion . If our conclusion is positive, we will confirm that we will provide cover - provided the outcome of the financial assessment is also positive.

Questions or advice?

Would you like more information about the environmental and social review? We would be pleased to tell you more about when an environmental and social review is required and what information we would need for this review. You can call us on +31 20 553 2693 or send us an e-mail info.dsb@atradius.com.