The Climate Bonds for Forests Program: Scaling up Private Sector Financing for REDD+ (Program) aims to support the implementation of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation as well as conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks (REDD+) at subnational/national scales. This will facilitate countries to transition to compliance with United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) requirements for REDD+.

The proposal builds on the work of the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) managed by the World Bank which supports forest countries to develop frameworks to implement REDD+ at jurisdictional scale (FCPF jurisdictions) with the potential to enter into commercial Emissions Reductions (ERs) transactions. The Program will alleviate financing barriers faced by implementors of REDD+ activities within FCPF jurisdictions by providing new sources of funding and supporting the incorporation of such activities into national/sub-national frameworks. The Program supports private sector-led REDD+ activities in target countries: Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Madagascar and Peru.

 The objective of Program’s Environmental and Social Management Framework (ESMF) is to ensure that negative environmental and social impacts are avoided or appropriately mitigated and compensated for. The ESMF is based on the IFC’s Sustainability Policies and Standards (2012) which include (i) the Sustainability Framework; (ii) Environmental and Social Performance Standards (PSs); (iii) Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) Guidelines; (iv) Corporate Governance Framework; and, (v) Corporate Governance Methodology, in addition to IFC’s Environmental and Social Procedures Manual (ESRP, 2016) as well as the Green Climate Fund (GCF) safeguards policies, and in line with UNFCCC safeguards (Cancun, 2010). The key principle cutting across all these environmental and social management policies and procedures is to avoid, or at least minimize, and adequately mitigate any potential negative impacts to the environment and to communities by incorporating environmental and social aspects as an intrinsic part of project management and implementation. Project level environmental and social risks and impacts will be identified during the due diligence phase and monitored during the life of the investment to ensure that supported activities comply with the policies and principles laid out in the ESMF.  It is expected that projects supported by the Climate Bonds for Forest Program will have limited and manageable impacts on the environment and local communities and benefits may be enhanced as a result of sustainable resource management, conservation and protection activities. 

As this is a multi-country program, specific environmental and social risks and impacts will only be known once projects are selected under each component. However, IFC has in place a detailed and robust environmental and social due diligence and supervision procedures that will be applied for assessing project specific environmental and social risks and impacts and relevant mitigation measures including considering gender differences around risks, impact and mitigation.  The Program’s ESMF provides an overview of the key aspects of IFC’s Sustainability Framework, existing environmental and social management policies and procedures that will guide the project level due diligence, the identification of environmental and social risks and impacts, assessment for any potential gaps in accordance with IFC’s PSs, and monitoring and supervision of project level implementation. 

The ESMF is attached in its original English version and translations into French and Spanish.