Serie de formaciones sobre la Gestión del Desempeño Ambiental con Oikocredit

[Artículo en inglés]

Between November 2023 and May 2025, Cerise+SPTF conducted three online training series on Environmental Performance Management (EPM) for Oikocredit’s partner financial service providers (FSPs) in South-East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.

The objective was to help partner FSPs identify their key environmental risks and define an adequate environmental strategy and action plan to address them.

In this perspective, Cerise+SPTF proposed a participatory and pragmatic approach, where the participants were guided, step-by-step in elaborating their own environmental strategy and/or action plan, relevant to their institution.

🌱 Key Topics Covered

• Assess the overall environmental performance of your institution;
• Identify the key environmental risks faced by your institution, both internally and externally, and assess their level of criticity;
• Elaborate your institutional principles of action in managing environmental issues, taking into account potential synergies and trade-offs with your social and financial performance;
• Define relevant actions to implement to address these environmental risks and grasp environmental opportunities, taking into account drivers of behavior change and best practices.

🚀 A wide and maintained attendance!

In total, 58 participants from 22 FSPs participated in the training (list of FSPs at the end):

• Between November 2023 and February 2024: over 30 participants from 12 FSPs in Indonesia, Cambodia and the Philippines. Several staff from Oikocredit and experts from the Philippines (MCPI) also attended the training as observers.
• Between November 2024 and May 2025: 28 participants from 10 FSPs in Kenya, Uganda, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Peru.

🎓 Training Series Structure & Outcomes

Participants were divided into groups by languages (English-speaking and Spanish-speaking). For each group, the training was conducted in 4 to 5 online sessions of 2h30 spread over 4 months. Cerise+SPTF provided theoretical background on Environmental Performance Management (Dimension 7 of the Universal Standards), sharing concrete examples, making participants work on practical cases, and giving assignments to fulfil in between each session.

As a result of the different assignments, most of the participant FSPs now have:

• Identified and prioritized the key environmental risks faced by their institution, at both institutional and client levels;
• Defined the position (or principles of action) of their institution in terms of environmental risk management (defensive/proactive, balance with social and financial objectives, etc.);
• Assessed the environmental performance of their institution using Focus Green on SPI Online (they all made the effort, even though some FSPs may have a bit overestimated their scores);
• Defined the environmental action plan of their institution (some FSPs, usually more advanced on the topic, did it in a very structured and detailed way; while others only started drafting first ideas, to be further discussed and fine-tuned internally).
• Started to engage their top management in discussions on EPM when working on their environmental action plan in particular. They started becoming internal ambassador of the topic, and creating an internal dynamic.

💡 Key Lessons Learned

• The role of Oikocredit was crucial in engaging and coordinating with partner FSPs.
• Virtual format is still a challenge to generate more engagement, concentration, interactions… but online format allows more easily to have international peer-learning, with a lower carbon footprint!
• Participants appreciated the step-by-step approach and assignments that allowed working on their concrete case and making some tangible progress by the end of the training.
• They also appreciated the peer-sharing opportunities. What worked well was when some FSPs were asked to prepare a presentation in advance for the group.

🔜 Next Steps

In order to continue sharing best practices, particularly through the collection and publication of practical resources, Cerise+SPTF follows up with the institutions that have been trained to see how some FSPs have taken steps towards integrating some of the learnings (engaging with top management in discussions on EPM, finalizing and implementing environmental action plans, assessing actions and the progress made in matter of EPM, etc.).

Stay tuned!...