The Project has been classified as category B according to IFC’s 2012 Policy on Environmental and Social Sustainability. The Company’s business is one of date processing; it does not have any primary production facilities of its own, i.e. VACPA does not grow any dates it merely sorts, grades and/or processes them. The Project will finance in part an upgrade to the Company’s storage and packing units and allow for the production of date juice concentrate. As such, many E&S risks and impacts associated with this Project are limited to the Company’s processing/production sites. Other E&S risks and impacts are of an indirect/reputational nature and are associated with the Company’s extensive supply chain, totaling some 1,000 date growers, many of whom are smallholders, and the farming practices traditionally employed by them in growing dates in arid parts of Tunisia.

IFC assessed the capacity of the client to identify, assess and manage E&S risks and impacts by undertaking a visit to the company’s processing and storage units, their contract farmers and meetings with local communities and government personnel involved in water and agricultural affairs. The applicable requirements include the IFC Performance Standards and the World Bank Group (WBG) General and Food and Beverage Processing EH&S Guidelines. Material E&S elements that will continue to require management include (i) the existing EHS management system used to drive required levels of E&S performance in order to meet regulatory, customer and other applicable requirements and its expansion to incorporate the new processing activity (manufacture of date concentrate), (ii) water availability for use in processing dates, and that required for date juice concentrate production as well as energy use, and the efficient consumption of both, (iii) labor and working conditions of both permanent and seasonal staff, (iv) assurance of food safety in the new production center, (v) management of third-party contractors (such as those involved in trucking) and and/or leverage over primary suppliers within the company’s extensive supply chain with respect to their agronomic practices, particularly their access to and use of water in irrigating their date plantations.