2011 Sustainability Report

The Sustainability Report delivers information regarding IDB’s contributions to sustainability during 2011. This Report also provides insights into key development trends and related sustainability dimensions in Latin America and the Caribbean. This year, in light of the Rio+20 conference, the focus of the Sustainability Report is on sustainability and agriculture in our region.

Meeting growing global demands for food and other agricultural products is an important economic opportunity for Latin America and the Caribbean. Yet the critical long-term environmental and social challenges this presents include impacts on ecosystem services, greater vulnerability of rural communities, land use changes, and increased climate change impacts. The report presents in Part I, leading-edge thinking on food security, climate change, land use change, and ecosystem services; and how to better achieve sustainability in today’s rapidly changing world, providing a regional context for the sustainability work of the Bank. One clear message comes through: solutions to today’s pressing problems must come from an integrated understanding of our world that incorporates changes in water, environment, climate, productivity, and sociopolitical systems.

Part II of the Report serves as an overview of the Bank’s advances in integrating sustainability into its operations. It details sustainability policies and procedures, tools, monitoring and evaluation at the IDB, as well as the year’s sustainability investment highlights, particularly focusing on the IDBs work in addressing the issues associated with biodiversity loss, food security and climate change. Case studies presented show clear links between the issues discussed in Part I and the work that the Bank is doing. It also provides quantitative information on environmental and social safeguard issues within IDB investments. We are proud of the advances we have made during 2011, which include:

• Increasing our sustainability investments.
• Decreasing the GHG emissions in our portfolio.
• Monitoring environmental and social safeguard performance.
• Contributing to regional development goals.

Part III provides a brief overview of the Bank’s in-house sustainability performance.