Online Course

Environmental and Social Risk Analysis

ESRA

Social Development		Environment		Economic Development
Protecting the Environment of the Evolving Community		Mitigating Environmental Impact		Avoiding Losses from Transfer of Environmental Liabilities

About the Course

The online course on Environmental and Social Risk Analysis is an initiative of the Latin American Taskforce of the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (LATF - UNEP FI), Capacity Building International of Germany (InWent) the INCAE Business School, with the support of the Ecobanking Project. Initially developed in Spanish in 2006 with the support of Bank of America, the English-language version of the course was produced in 2007 thanks to the support of FMO.

During these first three years we have conducted 20 courses in total, in which we have trained approximately 400 participants worldwide. Here are some interesting facts we have collected through these years:

The purpose of this course is to educate employees of financial and academic institutions, NGOs, consultants and anyone interested in the activities of Latin American financial institutions in topics leading to environmental and social risk analysis and management in the financial sector's internal and external operations.

The partners in this initiative are directing this effort at having participating financial institutions improve their competitiveness and contribute to the sustainable development of the regions in which they operate by including environmental and social guidelines in their operations; this means, for example, implementing environmental and social risk analysis and management tools to help identify, evaluate and manage risks generated by their customers' operations.

This training course was the first virtual (online) course offered by this initiative's partners; was implemented as a pioneering project aimed at promoting the relationship between finances and sustainable development in the region.

Course Objectives

General Objective

Support Latin American FIs in identifying, evaluating, and managing easily and in a timely manner the environmental and social risks generated by the activities and projects to be financed, in order to minimize the financial institution's probabilities of assuming the costs occasioned by these risks.

Specific Objectives

By training the different interested parties of Latin American financial institutions, the project hopes to:

• Raise participants’ awareness of the environmental risks produced by their customers’ activities;


• Make participants aware of how a competitive advantage is achieved, creating value and reducing risks;


• Demonstrate to participants the limitations of their current procedures in detecting those environmental and social risks;


• Show participants the setting in which financial institutions’ customers operate in order to detect the environmental and social risks generated by their activities;


• Teach participants program and system structures for institutionalizing environmental risk analysis;


• Teach participants what to do to detect, reduce, and evaluate the environmental and social risks produced by their customers’ activities;


• Give strategies to the participants to enable them to detect and understand marketing opportunities as a result of the environmental and social risks their customers may face;

Target audience

Risk managers and analysts in commercial, corporate, investment and retail banking focusing in developing countries and emerging markets.

A limited number of places are also available for representatives from relevant stakeholder audiences including: supervisory/regulatory bodies, banking associations, government agencies, academic institutions, NGOs and civil society organizations involved in finance and sustainability issues.

Please note that places for non-financial institution representatives are limited. Courses will not address how to financially analyze or how to set up a business plan for an environmental/socially oriented project in search of funding. The courses teach participants how to include environmental and social variables in the traditional analysis made by financial analysts when making lending and/or investment decisions, whatever the nature of the project.

Cost:

*Discounts are available for Programme Partner members or associates (e.g. UNEP FI Signatories)

Please note that course fees serve exclusively to cover the costs of running the course.

Applications: All applications should be submitted via our online form at least one week prior to the course you wish to participate in. On-line registration: English Spanish