Citi Perspectives Spring 2020

Citi Perspectives  | 39 With thousands of suppliers already receiving financing through Citi’s global supply chain finance platform, the technology is already fully capable of assigning individualized pricing per supplier. Where supplier finance is traditionally used to provide a financial benefit to suppliers alongside working capital or cost initiatives, it can now be used alongside ESG initiatives too. The independent auditor’s assessment of a supplier may be used to qualify them for preferential pricing, and thus not only mitigate the cost of compliance but create a practical financial benefit for that supplier. Leading by example Most major banks are engaging in sustainable finance solutions in support of clients’ increased focus on ESG. Citi has been a leader in these efforts with a long-standing history of embracing corporate social responsibility standards and practices in promoting business and progress worldwide. For example, Citi was one of the first global institutions to embrace the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals with a commitment to lend, invest and facilitate a total of $100 billion to finance green initiatives, sustainable growth and a reduction in the environmental impacts of the bank’s own global operations and supply chain by 2023. Citi expects to hit that target this year, having already made $95 billion in green investments. These sustainable investments include projects that have saved 4.5 million metric tons of CO 2 , equivalent to the annual green-house- gas emissions of more than 800,000 passenger vehicles; financed renewable energy projects with output equivalent to powering more than 300,000 homes; and financed water-quality projects reaching 43.6 million people in the U.S. Going a step further, in July of this year, Citi became the first major U.S. bank to endorse the “Principles for Responsible Banking,” which have been developed by the banking industry itself, as part of the United Nations Environment Program Finance Initiative (UNEP FI). Citi has been a part of this initiative since 1997. This follows the bank’s release last year of its first climate disclosure report, Finance for a Climate-Resilient Future, in response to the recommendations set forth by the G20 Financial Stability Board’s Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).