ABSTRACT
The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are both key pillars of the international financial architecture. Despite the World Bank’s growing role in adjustment lending, project lending remains central to its activities. The Bank has traditionally made loans only to governments, but it has increasingly emphasized supporting the private sector. Although strengthened environmental standards at the world’s export credit agencies are desperately needed, the risk remains that private capital markets will be tapped for environmentally damaging projects. Green investing is part of a broader socially responsible financial strategy. In the United States, socially responsible investing is a growth industry. Green investors need better information about corporate environmental performance if financial markets are to reflect environmental risks adequately. As World Bank environmental and social standards were strengthened over the last decade, private investors turned increasingly to bilateral export financing agencies to find support for projects that no longer passed muster at the Bank.
