ICC ratifies Principles for Social Trade Finance and Sustainability-Linked Supply Chain Finance  

ICC announced today the formal ratification of the Principles for Social Trade Finance (PSoTF) and the Principles for Sustainability-Linked Supply Chain Finance (PSL-SCF), following a public consultation launched at the United Nation’s 4th Financing for Development Conference in Seville in July. 

Together with the existing Principles for Green Trade Finance (PGTF), these newly ratified standards now complete the ICC Principles for Sustainable Trade Finance (PSTF) – the first fully standardised global framework for assessing sustainability in trade finance. 

Developed jointly by ICC and Boston Consulting Group (BCG), and shaped through consultations with more than 100 banks, corporates, multilaterals, technology platforms and civil-society experts, the PSTF reflect significant market testing across geographies and product types. The result is a practical and comparable framework that can be applied across the full spectrum of trade finance. 

Today’s announcement follows the recent public endorsements of the PGTF by Standard Chartered, Santander, ING Bank, Commerzbank, BNP Paribas, Intesa Sanpaolo, Natixis, Rabobank, Société Générale, Standard Bank and United Overseas Bank. 

The PSTF bring together three distinct but mutually reinforcing assessment pillars: 

• Principles for Green Trade Finance (PGTF): providing clear and consistent Use-of-Proceeds criteria for environmental sustainability, aligned with the Loan Market Association’s Green Loan Principles and ICMA’s Green Bond Principles. 

• Principles for Social Trade Finance (PSoTF): the world’s first dedicated Use of Proceeds framework for identifying, evidencing and safeguarding social impacts within trade finance, aligned with LMA Social Loan Principles and ICMA Social Bond Principles. 

• Principles for Sustainability-Linked Supply Chain Finance (PSL-SCF): offering a governance blueprint to strengthen KPI selection, sustainability performance target (SPT) calibration, verification and multi-bank coordination across sustainability-linked supply-chain finance programmes. 

 The principles provide a unified standard that allows the trade ecosystem to assess and communicate sustainability performance with clarity and confidence. ICC now invites stakeholders across the trade finance market to endorse the newly ratified PSoTF and PSL-SCF. 

Boston Consulting Group (BCG) is ICC’s long-standing strategic partner on the Sustainable Trade programme and co-led the working groups that developed the PSTF.