Eight major banks in Cambodia have shown limited progress in fully integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) principles, particularly in areas linked to nature conservation, according to a policy assessment released by Fair Finance Cambodia.

According to Kiripost, the 2023 Bank Policy Assessment examined ESG commitments across ABA Bank, Acleda Bank Plc, Canadia Bank, Cambodian Public Bank, Bank of China, Sathapana Bank, KB-Prasac Bank and CIMB Cambodia. While some improvement was recorded in sustainability reporting, significant gaps remain in several policy areas.

The study highlighted systemic challenges including weak public disclosure, inconsistent ESG implementation and limited regulatory enforcement. Although awareness of sustainability issues has gradually increased, progress remains uneven across different sectors.

The assessment, carried out in 2024, reviewed policies related to climate change, corruption prevention, human rights, labour protection, biodiversity, taxation, transparency, gender equality and accountability. Among these, tax compliance and anti-corruption measures achieved relatively higher scores, while nature-related environmental commitments recorded the lowest performance.

Climate change awareness improved modestly, rising to 0.6 points in 2023 from zero in 2020. However, human rights and gender equality policies were still considered insufficient, with consistently low scores across all banks. Labour rights showed early improvement but declined again in 2023, suggesting enforcement difficulties.

Among the institutions evaluated, CIMB Cambodia achieved the highest overall sustainability reporting score at 2.4 out of 10. Although its transparency and accountability indicators improved slightly since 2020, progress slowed in 2023.

The coalition urged the banking industry to accelerate adoption of sustainable finance practices to support national development goals. Recommendations included expanding green financing products, strengthening climate risk management and improving stakeholder engagement.

The report was supported by members of the civil society network including Oxfam in Cambodia, Cooperation Committee for Cambodia, Transparency International Cambodia, Star Kampuchea, ActionAid Cambodia, SILAKA and Norwegian People’s Aid, and is aligned with the broader objectives of Fair Finance Asia.

 

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