Re­pub­lic Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings Lim­it­ed (RFHL) has be­come an of­fi­cial sig­na­to­ry of the Unit­ed Na­tions Prin­ci­ples for Re­spon­si­ble Bank­ing—a sin­gle frame­work for a sus­tain­able bank­ing in­dus­try de­vel­oped through a part­ner­ship with banks world­wide and the Unit­ed Na­tions En­vi­ron­ment Pro­gramme Fi­nance Ini­tia­tive (UN­EP FI).

In a state­ment, RFHL ex­plained the Prin­ci­ples for Re­spon­si­ble Bank­ing set out the bank­ing in­dus­try’s role and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in shap­ing a sus­tain­able fu­ture and aligns the bank­ing sec­tor with the ob­jec­tives of the UN Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals and the 2015 Paris Cli­mate Agree­ment.

These prin­ci­ples en­able a bank to em­bed sus­tain­abil­i­ty across all its busi­ness ar­eas and to iden­ti­fy po­ten­tial op­por­tu­ni­ties to make the most im­pact in con­tribut­ing to a sus­tain­able world.

Nigel Bap­tiste, pres­i­dent and CEO of RFHL, said: “We are proud to be the first sig­na­to­ry in the Eng­lish-Speak­ing Caribbean to the UN­EP FI Prin­ci­ples for Re­spon­si­ble Bank­ing. As we go for­ward at a Group lev­el we in­tend to spread this out, and let Re­pub­lic Bank be the cheer­leader of this ini­tia­tive for the Caribbean.”

Ex­cept for the British Vir­gin Is­lands and An­guil­la, all coun­tries in which RFHL op­er­ates have signed up to the UN Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals tar­get and the Paris Cli­mate Agree­ment.

“We will be set­ting tar­gets for the Group that will car­ry us for­ward in­to 2030,” Bap­tiste said, adding that he hopes the or­gan­i­sa­tion will make a dif­fer­ence in pover­ty, ed­u­ca­tion, the role of women in so­ci­ety, cli­mate change, sus­tain­able agri­cul­tur­al prac­tices and the blue econ­o­my and more.

“From a Re­pub­lic Group’s per­spec­tive, our com­mit­ment is to make a pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence,” Bap­tiste added.

By be­com­ing a sig­na­to­ry of the UN Prin­ci­ples of Bank­ing, the Re­pub­lic Group is fur­ther com­mit­ting to mak­ing a pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence in the com­mu­ni­ties and coun­tries in which it op­er­ates, the bank said.

The Unit­ed Na­tions En­vi­ron­ment Pro­gramme Fi­nance Ini­tia­tive (UN­EP FI) is a part­ner­ship be­tween UN­EP and the glob­al fi­nan­cial sec­tor to mo­bilise pri­vate sec­tor fi­nance for sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment. UN­EP FI works with more than 300 mem­bers—banks, in­sur­ers, and in­vestors—and over 100 sup­port­ing in­sti­tu­tions—to help cre­ate a fi­nan­cial sec­tor that serves peo­ple and plan­et while de­liv­er­ing pos­i­tive im­pacts. It aims to in­spire, in­form and en­able fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions to im­prove peo­ple’s qual­i­ty of life with­out com­pro­mis­ing that of fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.