This report is an outcome of work done by IFC’s Sustainable Financial Markets Facility (SFMF), a capacity-building and technical assistance program focusing on the social and environmental aspects of finance and investment in emerging markets. With the support of the donor governments of Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, and relying on a global network of partners, IFC has delivered Competitive Business Advantage (CBA) workshops for managers of financial institutions around the world since 1997. In 2002, IFC conducted a survey of participants in the CBA work shops to better understand the sustainability challenges and opportunities faced by banks in emerging markets, and to find
out how they were responding. The results were published in a 2003 report, Beyond Risk. Since then, the global financial industry has experienced a significant transformation in which social and environmental responsibility has become increasingly central to business performance. This trend is expanding to include emerging markets, which are quickly becoming an integral part of international capital flows. When IFC conducted a second survey of banks in 2005, the responses showed greater awareness of the importance of sustainability and better management of both risk and opportunity.