Anil Kumar Sinha ak_sinha@asiapacific.edu Asia Pacific Institute of Management, New Delhi.

The "Equator Principles" is a set of guidelines, developed voluntarily by the leading banks and financial institutions of the world, for managing social and environmental issues related to project financing. It was adopted by ten prominent banks from seven countries in a meeting in London on June 3, 2003. since infrastructure lending by these bankers constituted around 30% of the global infrastructure/ project financing, they took lead. As of today, more than forty, 43 to be precise, leading financial institutions of the world have adopted the Principles. Based on their experiences for the last three years, they have revised the equator principles in a meeting in London on July 6, 2006.