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The Equator Principles are a set of operational principles and standards adopted by more than 70 public and private financial institutions to manage environmental and social risks in project financing. This article assesses the impact of the voluntary framework on lending policies and practices, and the environmental and social accountability of financial institutions. It finds that the direct link between the Equator Principles and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank Group's private sector financing division, enhances the legitimacy and potential impact of the framework. However, development of lending policies across financial institutions is greatly uneven, and the framework has not stopped lending to projects with significant environmental and social costs. Although the framework has improved relations between financial institutions and stakeholders, a lack of transparency undermines external accountability. The conclusion considers the scope for increased harmonization of environmental and social lending policies in international banking.

The Equator Principles are a set of operational principles and standards adopted by more than 70 public and private financial institutions to manage environmental and social risks in project financing. This article assesses the impact of the voluntary framework on lending policies and practices, and the environmental and social accountability of financial institutions. It finds that the direct link between the Equator Principles and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank Group's private sector financing division, enhances the legitimacy and potential impact of the framework. However, development of lending policies across financial institutions is greatly uneven, and the framework has not stopped lending to projects with significant environmental and social costs. Although the framework has improved relations between financial institutions and stakeholders, a lack of transparency undermines external accountability. The conclusion considers the scope for increased harmonization of environmental and social lending policies in international banking. Adapted from the source document.

The status of human resource management (HRM) and its standing as a managerial profession has been a recurring concern for practitioners over time. In recent years, a normative discourse has developed which asserts that the path to improved status for HR `professionals' involves reinvention of their role as `business partners' and `internal consultants' promoting enterprise competitiveness. This article examines how HR managers interpret this new role and whether the internalization of this model results in an increase in professional identity. The findings suggest that while many gain greater self-esteem and organizational status from the identity and role of business partner/internal consultant, this does not equate to a broader identity as a member of an HR `profession'. Two developments are central here. First, the focus on the business partner/ internal consultancy role has served to undermine any pretence to a unitary and cohesive occupational identity, as the bifurcation between routine transactional and strategic transformational activities encourages competition within the HR profession between different sub-groupings. Second, this strategy of redefinition has reduced the entry barriers demarcating HR activities and facilitated the entry of new occupational groups and rival managerial specialisms.