Washington, December 12, 2013
—The Financial Times and IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, today launched an awards program to showcase business initiatives that can create long-term, transformative solutions to environmental, social, and corporate governance challenges, particularly in developing nations.
The FT/IFC Transformational Business Awards: Sustainable Solutions to Today’s Development Challenges expand the FT/IFC Sustainable Finance Awards, which established themselves over eight years as the leading global awards for environmentally and socially responsible banking and investment. The 2013 Sustainable Finance Awards attracted a record 254 entries from 221 organizations in 61 countries.
The new program will highlight innovative, commercially viable, and replicable products and services that address development needs in areas such as infrastructure, energy, food and water, education and health. It also recognizes the use of technology to empower the poor and efforts to reverse environmental and social degradation.
Martin Dickson, U.S. managing editor of the Financial Times and co-chair of the Transformational Business Awards judging panel, said: “We’ve made the Transformational Business Awards open to all organizations – financial and non-financial – across both the private and public sectors. They focus on specific projects and transactions and the impact those initiatives have on the problems they are targeting.”
Nena Stoiljkovic, IFC Vice President, Business Advisory Services, and fellow judging panel co-chair, said: “We want to recognize financial institutions and companies that have developed innovative solutions that can work in many markets with a focus on long-term value creation for businesses and the communities in which they operate.”
The FT/IFC Transformational Business Awards will reward innovation, impact, replicability and commercial viability on a transactional basis across the following categories:
• Achievement in Project Finance
o Infrastructure
o Energy
o Food/Water
o Education
o Health
• Achievement in Information and Communications Technology
• Achievement in Transformational Finance
• Achievement in Inclusive Business
Special attention will be given to public-private partnerships.
The winners in each category will be announced at a special dinner at the InterContinental London Park Lane on June 12, 2014.
The dinner will conclude the inaugural FT/IFC Transformational Business Conference, a major one-day summit that will gather policy-makers, business leaders and strategists from around the world to discuss new ways of tackling the key challenges facing emerging economies and societies.
In conjunction with the awards, IFC will be hosting a series of Transformational Business Days in cities around the world from December 2013 to February 2014 to provide more information about the new awards program and to promote best practice in transformational business and finance.
PwC is technical advisor for the awards.
About IFC:
IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, is the largest global development institution focused exclusively on the private sector. Working with private enterprises in more than 100 countries, we use our capital, expertise, and influence to help eliminate extreme poverty and promote shared prosperity. In FY13, our investments climbed to an all-time high of nearly $25 billion, leveraging the power of the private sector to create jobs and tackle the world’s most pressing development challenges. For more information, visit
www.ifc.org
.
About the Financial Times:
The Financial Times
, one of the world’s leading business news organisations, is recognised internationally for its authority, integrity and accuracy. Providing essential news, comment, data and analysis for the global business community, the FT has a combined paid print and digital circulation of over 600,000 (Deloitte assured, 2 January 2012 – 1 April 2012) and a combined print and online average daily readership of 2.2 million people worldwide (PwC assured, November 2011). FT.com has more than 4.5 million registered users and 285,475 paying digital subscribers. The newspaper, printed at 21 print sites across the globe, has a global print circulation of 319,381 (ABC, March 2012). For more information, visit
www.ft.com
.
Stay Connected
