ESG Advisory Services for DEG clients in the Financial Sector

DEG - Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft mbH (DEG), member of KfW Group, is one of the European development finance institutions (EDFI). For more than 60 years, DEG has been financing and advising private enterprises operating in developing and emerging market countries. As an impact and climate investor, DEG accompanies companies that are addressing transformation and aiming to seize their opportunities. DEG Impulse gGmbH (DEG Impulse), a 100% subsidiary of DEG, provides companies with advisory and grant funding solutions for their investments in developing and emerging countries, thereby enabling companies to implement these investments efficiently and effectively, thus promoting social and ecological transition in the private sector while supporting development policy goals as defined by the SDGs. One key offering of DEG Impulse are its Business Support Services (BSS) through which it provides non-repayable co-financing for advisory or development projects that help DEG clients to improve their performance and growth as well as their sustainability and developmental impact. Environmental, social and governance (ESG) aspects have become an element of management decision processes in the financial sector worldwide. Initiatives like the UNEP Finance Initiative, the Equator Principles (www.equator-principles.com), the IFC Performance Standards (https://www.ifc.org/en/insights-reports/2012/ifc-performance-standards) or national sustainable finance initiatives promoted this process. Emerging market banking regulators and industry associations increasingly cooperate with partner institutions such as Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) to further the development of regulatory guidance that encourages local banks to adopt sustainable banking practices and to improve the management of ESG risks, including climate risks, across the financial sector. DEG and DEG Impulse contribute to these developments by supporting DEGs financial sector clients in the process of developing, improving and implementing adequate ESG management structures and capabilities to address the specific ESG risks and opportunities associated with their lending or investment business activities. By way of this tendering process, DEG Impulse intends to select several independent consultancy companies who can provide such ESG related advisory services to DEG"s clients in the financial sector (mainly banks and investment funds). DEG Impulse seeks to conclude framework agreements with the selected consultancy companies under which individual ESG advisory services for DEG clients ("individual advisory engagements") shall be carried out over the duration of the framework agreements. DEG Impulse intends to co-finance these individual advisory engagements through its BSS program.