Bancóldex, Colombia’s business development bank, received the highest Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) rating from Standard & Poor’s Global (S&P) as a national development bank in Latin America for its corporate environmental, social and governance practices.

Bancóldex obtained an ESG score of 68 points out of 100, following an analysis by Standard & Poor’s Global around three dimensions: environmental profile (including aspects such as internal and external management associated with factors such as greenhouse gases, water use and waste disposal); social dimension (workforce equity, customer commitment, communities); and governance (including factors such as transparency, codes and values, and financial and operational risk).

The corporate ESG evaluation processes of companies in different sectors around the world seek to have comparable scales in relation to best practices in this area. To date, the average score achieved by companies measured in Europe is 70 points; in North America, 65; in Asia-Pacific, 60; and in Latin America, 55.

According to the S&P report, the evaluation given to Bancóldex reflects a solid commitment of its credit operations with the fronts of the ESG Evaluation and with the granting of sustainable financing and technical assistance for micro, small and medium-sized companies in Colombia.

In the social dimension of the measurement, Bancóldex obtained a score of 71 out of 100, ranking second in Latin America among the entities evaluated.

In turn, in governance, the score was 65 out of 100 and in the environmental area, it reached 59 out of 100. These last results are above the ESG practices of the banking industry.

Additionally, the ESG Assessment highlighted that the Bank is adequately prepared for the disruptive trends of the local and global environment and that, in its Strategic Plan 2022 – 2026, it took the lead in taking into account important challenges in the banking sector such as social gaps and climate change.

Finally, S&P Global also considered relevant the fact that the Bank is making progress in the implementation of a more robust risk management system to cover the most important social and environmental aspects in its loan portfolio