First Bank Becomes First in Taiwan to Sign Finance for Biodiversity Pledge

(CNA, Taipei, May 21, by reporter Lu Yen-tzu) With tomorrow being the International Day for Biological Diversity, First Bank announced today that it has joined the international Finance for Biodiversity (FfB) Pledge, becoming the first company in Taiwan to sign the commitment. The bank will integrate biodiversity into its sustainable development strategy and governance framework, regularly monitor its implementation, and promote the flow of financial capital towards nature-positive development. In a press release today, First Bank explained that climate change and the loss of natural assets have become significant operational risks for businesses. The bank is progressively building a natural finance governance mechanism through its "F.I.R.S.T. Sustainability Blueprint" and "Sustainable Lending/Investment Policy" to deepen its sustainability momentum. For example, in its credit and investment reviews, the bank explicitly prohibits providing loans to enterprises engaged in illegal logging and fishing. For environmentally sensitive industries such as agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, and mining, it has strengthened its due diligence mechanisms and incorporated climate, forest, and water issues into its assessment process. First Bank stated that this year it is actively fulfilling its FfB pledge commitments by incorporating biodiversity into its corporate ESG policy, inventorying a "High Natural Risk Industry List," participating in monthly international FfB workshops, and conducting cross-departmental educational training. It also plans to incorporate natural risk assessment for forest issues in its credit review process and add reviews of water risk management plans and targets for high water-consumption industries in investment evaluations, setting nature-risk targets and quantitative indicators. In terms of concrete financing, First Bank said it is promoting "nature-positive" transition finance, supporting enterprises to adopt water-saving process technologies to reduce water consumption by about 25% and lessen environmental impact. It has also included "natural resource reduction" as a key performance indicator in its Sustainability-Linked Loans (SLLs). This encourages companies in the palm oil and processed products sales and trade business to set sustainable development goals, including increasing the ratio of suppliers committed to NDPE (No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation) and the ratio of suppliers with traceable independent verification, guiding companies to implement sustainability through interest rate reduction mechanisms.