Corporate social responsibility

The commitment to CSR issues is growing among companies, and many of the seminars and conferences we have been involved in have focused on these issues. This year we have further enhanced our procedures for ethical concerns.

EKN’s Director General Karin Apelman gave a presentation on CSR issues at a conference arranged by the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs during Sweden’s EU Presidency. Also on the panel was Hakan Lucius from the European Investment Bank.

In seminars and conferences, we have explained what EKN is doing on CSR issues, in order to focus more attention on this area. For example, we took part in a conference in China with European and Chinese companies and official bodies, in which we explained how we review environmental and social issues when issuing guarantees. We also took part in a CSR conference arranged by the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs during Sweden’s EU Presidency.

Human Rights

If EKN’s review shows that a transaction has a negative environmental impact, or if we assess the social conditions unacceptable, we require corrective actions in order to guarantee the transaction. The environmental factors that EKN considers are the effects on air, water, land, resource consumption, waste, noise, and sensitive natural and cultural sites.

The social factors that EKN assesses are the impact on people and communities, such as migration or resettlement, working conditions at the buyer, for example health and safety, child labour and forced labour. Cooperation between customers and EKN has improved, and we are seeing ever greater commitment among companies on CSR issues.

In international trade, EKN wants to play its part in ensuring that any impact on the environment and on people is managed in an ethical and sustainable way.

Environmental impact

EKN recommends its business partners to apply the principles in the OECD’s guidelines for multinational companies and the UN’s Global Compact. These guidelines include recommendations on human rights, labour law, environmental protection, and reflect good practice for companies.

The assessment of environmental and social issues is an integral part of EKN’s business processes. A new feature this year is that in some transactions we also classify the risks of violation of human rights.

EKN collects information about the environmental impact of a transaction right from the application phase. The transaction is then classified taking into account the presumed environmental impact of the transaction. These categories are defined and ratified in the OECD. The categories are: A, which means a high level of impact; B which means less impact than category A; and C, which means little or no impact. The majority of transactions with mediumand long-term credit periods guaranteed by EKN during the business year fell into the C category. A large number of transactions and projects have an ameliorating effect on the environment.

For category A transactions, EKN requires an in-depth environmental review, what is known as an Environmental Impact Assessment that complies with international standards. This is always done if a transaction’s contractual amount exceeds SEK 100 million and has a credit period of two years or longer. EKN also reviews transactions or projects below SEK 100 million if there are special reasons.

Transactions in categories A and B guaranteed by EKN during
the year

Anti-corruption

Companies that apply for an EKN guarantee must certify that there are no bribes in the transaction. The guarantee may be invalidated if it is later found that bribes have been involved. We also demand information about any commission payable to agents. If the company pays compensation to agents, we ask for further details so that we can assess whether the agent commissions are in fact bribes. EKN’s policy on corruption is in line with that of other export credit agencies in the OECD.

Sustainable lending

The World Bank and the IMF (International Monetary Fund) set limits for their commercial borrowing programmes for heavily indebted poor countries. EKN’s policy is that it will not guarantee transactions with public sector purchasers in these countries if the transaction is in breach of the country’s poverty reduction or debt strategy, or in some other way impedes the country’s social or economic development. The policy covers the issue of guarantees for credits that increase directly or indirectly state indebtedness.