The objective of this
TOR is to assist
IFC in developing methodologies to assess certifications on climate eligibility,
both mitigation and adaptation, for IFC trade and SCF financing, especially
short-term finance (STF) products. This would enable IFC to credibly scale-up
climate financing, resulting in more impact on green jobs, Scope 3 decarbonization,
and flows of climate-enabling goods. The methodology will cover
international certifications with climate co-benefits (for agri commodities, forestry,
etc.) as well as global buyers’ environmental and social management systems for
suppliers that include climate-related metrics (for manufactured goods such as
apparel-footwear, electronics, etc.). Methodologies must align with the IFC Definitions
and Metrics for Climate Related Activities, the MDB Common Principles for
Climate Mitigation Finance Tracking[1]
as well as other specified IFC’s climate and sustainability standards.
Alignment with other well-established international standards (e.g., SBTi, CDP,
GHG Protocol) should also be assessed.
IFC seeks a
well-established, global, and climate specialist firm to assist in:
Component 1: Developing a detailed, but user friendly, taxonomy
and scoring tool to evaluate sustainability certifications and buyers’
frameworks, focusing on climate application. The tool will also consider selected
social metrics (especially gender) as they directly impact, and co-benefit
from, application and outcomes under such certifications and frameworks. This
is primarily for IFC’s internal use and potential adaption to support IFC’s
external clients; and
Component 2: Mapping a wide inventory of global sustainability
certifications (200-300; see Annex 1) and buyers’ frameworks (20-30; see Annex
2]) and conducting deep-dive assessments (through desktop review and interviews
with the standard setting bodies, as well as reviewing scientific literature),
on to-be-agreed short-list of certifications (50-100) and frameworks (10-15),
focusing on climate metrics and their MRV (measurement, reporting,
verification) and audit protocol (especially digital solutions), and overall
robustness for IFC climate tagging for our financing linked to goods under such
certifications or frameworks. This activity will generate a final list of
sustainability certifications (derived from the short-list) that can be used as
proxies for climate co-benefits. The consultant will also provide supporting
evidence on why this final list of certification qualifies as a proxy for
climate co-benefits.[1]
[1]
The supporting evidence should be a short write-up on why a certain
certification scheme qualified as a good proxy for climate co-benefits and provide
in the form of quantitative information the benefits of using these certifications
(for example, Sustainability Certification X farmers have reduced their water
footprint by 20%; certified coffee has a GHG footprint 20% lower than
non-certified coffee, etc.).