The Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) was conferred a certificate of merit for its DBP Forest Program (DFP), during the prestigious Karlsruhe Sustainable Finance Awards.
DBP’s Forest Program won the award under the Outstanding Sustainable Project Financing category which recognizes outstanding success in the long-term financing of exemplary industrial/ commercial or infrastructure projects that benefit local communities, protect the environment, and ensure reliable returns to investors and depositors.
The particular project in DBP’s Forest Program (one of 43 projects nationwide), is a partnership with West Visayas State University (WVSU), that aims to protect and preserve the environment through concentrated reforestation efforts in 500 hectares of upland forest in Lambunao, Iloilo province with the planting of high value and indigenous fruit and forest trees with intercrops. The project also provides livelihood for the neighboring community, including informal settlers within the upland forest area, and serves as a venue for research, practicum, training, capacity-building, and knowledge/ technology transfer through WVSU.
This Merit Award marks DBP’s third recognition from the Global Sustainable Finance Network for its contribution to the field of sustainable finance. Last year, DBP also won in the Outstanding Sustainable Project Financing category for its success in water and forest financing projects. DBP’s winning entries were the P1.1-billion Cebu Bulk Water Supply Project that will produce 35 million liters of water daily to homes in central and northern Cebu, and the Palawan State University Forest project which is a beneficiary of the DFP. In 2013, DBP was also conferred the certificate of merit for its entry, the Philippine Water Revolving Fund.
The Karlsruhe Sustainable Finance Award is given to financial institutions and organizations with outstanding contributions in the field of sustainable finance and which embeds economic, social and environmental sustainability into their businesses and promotes growth of green financing instruments and markets worldwide. The awards were jointly instituted by the European Organization for Sustainable Development, the City of Karlsruhe, Germany and the Association of Development Financing Institutions in Asia and the Pacific.