Biodiversity and Ecosystem Integrity

Our Goal

CIMB's long-term approach involves managing potential negative impacts from financing, and concurrently delivering products and services that positively impact the environment and society, thus creating a balance between risk management and positive societal contributions. We will strongly enable, encourage and engage our clients while steering our operations towards preventing, mitigating and reversing nature loss.

Our Objectives

1. Integrate Biodiversity Considerations: Embed nature and biodiversity considerations into CIMB's sectoral policies, risk management frameworks, and decision-making processes to ensure that environmental impacts are minimised and positive contributions are maximised.
 

2. Align Portfolio with Nature-Positive Goals: Steer CIMB's investment portfolio towards activities that contribute to the prevention, mitigation, and reversal of nature loss, while promoting biodiversity and ecosystem balance and overall health.
 

3. Engage with Clients and Stakeholders: Collaborate with clients and other stakeholders to promote nature-positive practices, support sustainable initiatives, and foster a shared commitment to biodiversity conservation.
 

4. Mitigate Nature-Related Risks: Identify, assess, and manage nature-related risks across CIMB's operations and our customers, including physical, transition, and systemic risks.
 

5. Promote a Just Transition: Ensure that CIMB's efforts to protect biodiversity and address climate change are equitable and inclusive, benefiting all stakeholders in ASEAN, including indigenous populations.

Our Current Approach to Nature and Biodiversity

Sustainability Sensitive Sector Guides

CIMB is committed to integrating Environmental, Economic, and Social (EES) considerations into our risk assessment and strategies to ensure a positive impact on stakeholders and the environment in our non-retail financing and capital raising transactions. To address nature and biodiversity risks, we have embedded Biodiversity and Nature considerations in our Sustainability Sensitive Sector List and Guidance document. This document:
 

• Clearly articulate our definition of Sustainability Sensitive Sectors (previously known as High Sustainability Risk Sectors) for certain sectors – Coal, Palm Oil, Forestry, Manufacturing Construction and Infrastructure, Oil & Gas and Mining and Quarrying
  
  
• Provide a reference list of Sustainability Sensitive Sectors
  
  
• Sector guidance to aid CIMB’s decision-making process
  
   

By focusing on the sectors highlighted above CIMB can effectively:
 

• Identify and mitigate risks: Identify and mitigate potential negative impacts on biodiversity and ecosystems within our operations and investments
  
  
• Support conservation: Promote initiatives that protect and restore biodiversity, such as nature-based solutions and conservation projects
  
  
• Encourage sustainable practices: Foster sustainable practices among our clients and partners to minimize their environmental footprint and contribute to biodiversity conservation
   

No Deforestation, No Peat, and No Exploitation​

In 2022, we rolled out our No Deforestation, No Peat, and No Exploitation (NDPE) commitment to the palm oil, forestry and timber plantation sectors in larger markets, while smaller markets adopted the policy in 2023.
 

Under our NDPE policy, we will not finance or facilitate capital raising for companies that:
 

• Are directly involved in the new conversion of High Conservation Value (HCV) areas;
  
  
• Are directly involved in the new conversion on peat;
   

• Lack legal rights and a policy/commitment on respecting free, prior, and informed consent of indigenous and local communities; or
  
  
• Lack policy/commitment on no exploitation of workers are respecting labor rights.

We also strongly encourage processors, such as palm oil mills, to implement traceability systems for external crop suppliers, construct an assurance method to guarantee crops are lawfully sourced, and engage with external suppliers on their own NDPE standards.

Deforestation and Biodiversity Risk Assessment

In 2023, we developed a Deforestation and Biodiversity Risk Assessment process as part of our due diligence to assess biodiversity risk in the projects and non-retail clients that we finance across key markets. The process relies on a synthesis of data from three separate web applications providing information on peatlands, areas managed for conservation goals, including UNESCO-MAB Biosphere Reserves and Ramsar Sites, as well as IUCN Management categories.
 

What Is The Plan Moving Forward?

As a founding signatory of the Principles for Responsible Banking (PRB) and in light of emerging frameworks such as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), we are in progress of conducting a comprehensive nature and biodiversity assessment for several of our key sectors. This assessment aims to provide valuable insights into our dependency on and impact on biodiversity, identifying potential risks and opportunities for improvement. We anticipate the results of this assessment will be available in 2025.