Citi Supports Olam International with ESG Trade Loan for Sustainable Rice Farming

A first for Citi in Asia and Olam International in India, the ESG Trade Loan will help farmers in northern India adopt better rice farming practices

Hong Kong/Mumbai – Citi Asia Pacific announces the conclusion of an Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Trade Loan to support Olam International Limited (Olam) in India. A first for Citi in the region and Olam in India, the loan will support Olam’s objective of helping a large number of farmers in Northern India adopt sustainable rice farming practices.

Rice cultivation is a leading contributor to climate change, emitting 10% of all global man-made methane emissions while consuming a significant amount of water. Supported by Citi India’s financing, Olam will promote sustainable rice farming practices including the use of land, water, soil, nutrients, and general resource allocation and greener practices during the land preparation, planting, harvesting, and post-harvesting stages.

“At Olam, we are intent on supporting the Sustainable Rice Platform in order to re-imagine this sector by improving the livelihoods of farmers and their families, and protecting the environment. Citi shares our ambition, and we are pleased to partner with them to drive positive social and environmental impact.”

Paul Nicholson, Head of Rice Research and Sustainability for Olam’s global rice business

“Olam is at the forefront of adopting and encouraging sustainability at the core of every business we do in India. The Sustainable Rice Platform headed by Nitin Gupta and supported by our Rice team in India is an excellent initiative that supports our sustainability focus. Through SRP, we are transforming rice farming across Haryana and Punjab, having covered 10,000 acres of land already with a target to cover 35,000 to 40,000 acres of land by 2025. We welcome Citi India in partnering with us to support our endeavors in sustainable rice farming and look forward to working closely together on future sustainability initiatives”.

Sanjay Sacheti, Olam India CEO

The ESG trade loan for Olam contributes to Citi’s global US$500 billion Environmental Finance Goal, part of Citi’s Sustainable Progress Strategy announced in July 2020. Citi recently established a target of US$1 trillion in sustainable finance by 2030, which includes US$500 billion in environmental finance and US$500 billion in social finance. This follows Citi’s previous ten-year US$100 billion Environmental Finance Goal, which was met four years early with US$164 billion towards environmental solutions (2014-2019).

“Guided by a commitment to drive positive social and environmental impact through our products, services and work with clients, we are leveraging our financial expertise to help clients achieve their sustainability objectives, which increasingly includes addressing environmental and social challenges across supply chains. We are pleased to be partnering with Olam in our first ESG trade loan transaction in Asia Pacific as we support their ESG priorities. More broadly, we are seeing increasing demand for ESG financing amongst our treasury clients as they evaluate their operations and supply chains. We look forward to continued activity in this space as we further build out ESG-focused solutions across trade loans, sustainability-linked supply chain financing as well as agency-backed financing.”

Kanika Thakur, Asia Pacific Trade Head, Treasury and Trade Solutions, Citi

“Sustainable agriculture is gaining prevalence and we are working closely with clients across industries to create tailored environmental financing and ESG-linked financing solutions. Sustainability is increasingly becoming an important theme across corporates in India. While ESG financing is at a nascent stage in the country, the transaction demonstrates Citi’s ability to support sustainable practices and generate impact through the co-creation of innovative solutions for clients”.

Mridula Iyer, India, and South Asia Head, Treasury and Trade Solutions, Citi

Olam is a leading food and agri-business supplying food, ingredients, feed, and fibre to 17,300 customers worldwide. As a governing member of SRP, Olam guides the multi-stakeholder platform to adopt holistic standards including water and land use, labor standards, greenhouse gas emissions, and reducing chemical inputs, all while maintaining production yields.

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About Citi’s Treasury and Trade Solutions

Citi Treasury and Trade Solutions (TTS) enables our clients’ success by providing an integrated suite of innovative and tailored cash management and trade finance services to multinational corporations, financial institutions and public sector organizations across the globe. Based on the foundation of the industry’s largest proprietary network with banking licenses in over 90 countries and globally integrated technology platforms, TTS continues to lead the way in offering the industry’s most comprehensive range of digitally enabled treasury, trade and liquidity management solutions.

About Citi

Citi, the leading global bank, has approximately 200 million customer accounts and does business in more than 160 countries and jurisdictions. Citi provides consumers, corporations, governments, and institutions with a broad range of financial products and services, including consumer banking and credit, corporate and investment banking, securities brokerage, transaction services, and wealth management.

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Media Contacts

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