Environment Preservation in the Amazon

Bradesco endeavors to incorporate sustainability into each one of its business activities and corporate strategies. We do believe in a better world for both current and future generations. Considering that socio-environmental investment is one of the pillars of our sustainability core, we support many initiatives regarding that matter in Brazil, through partnerships directed at the preservation of forest environment.

Two initiatives that are currently being developed are the Fundação Amazonas Sustentável (FAS, Sustainable Amazon Foundation) – which has the goals of preserving a group of 35 environment preservation units in the Amazon region, promoting sustainable development, and improving the quality of life of the populations involved – and the SOS Mata Atlantica Foundation, which makes possible the projects that are devoted to the protection of the Mata Atlantica (Atlantic Woods) through conservation programs, environmental education, and forest restoration, among other things.

Bradesco is one of the co-founders of FAS, which is a groundbreaking partnership between the Bank and the Brazilian state of Amazonas and was made public in November 2007. FAS’s goal is to value environmental services provided by the Amazon Rainforest, with a view toward improving the quality of life of the riverbank communities and the forest’s preservation.

The Bank’s initial financial resources amounted to R$20 million (US$11.2 million), which, together with the Amazonas state government’s additional R$20 million, formed a permanent fund in which only revenues are invested, making the FAS Foundation financially sustainable in the long run. BRAM (Bradesco Asset Management) manages the resources.

From 2008 to 2012, an additional R$50 million (US$27.8 million) will be invested – R$10 million (US$5.5 million) a year. Other private organizations have also contributed to the Foundation through financial and technical resources. The totals handed to the NGO are obtained from the sales of products related to the initiative, such as credit cards and capitalization bonds. FAS supports the 35 environment preservation units – which cover 40,525,116.55 acres of land – in the state of Amazonas.

The first action taken by the partnership occurred within the scope of the Bolsa-Floresta program (Forest-Grant program), a pioneer program in Brazil devised by the Amazonas government as part of the state’s policies on Climate Change, Environmental Preservation, and the Amazon’s Sustainable Development. There are four categories of Bolsa-Floresta: income Bolsa-Floresta (supporting sustainable activities); social Bolsa-Floresta (improving health, transportation, and communications); the Bolsa-Floresta Association (organizing reservation dwellers as representative groups); and the Bolsa-Floresta Family (payment to the communities for environmental services and products, for sustainable use of natural resources, and for environment preservation and protection). Until December 2009, the Bolsa-Floresta programs had benefited up to 6,800 families in Amazonas.

We are concerned and seeking to understand more and more about climate change issues. We have been refining our assessment of climate change impacts on our businesses, and analyzing the risks that are directly related to our activities, especially those concerning structures of treatment, credit, defaults, and insurance. We have also being assessing operational, reputational, and regulatory risks from different economic sectors that have a relationship with the Bank, in addition to environmental damage risks that may be caused by projects financed by Bradesco.

According to the Brazilian Ministry of Environment, 70 percent of national emissions are due to deforestation and to other types of land mismanagement, such as clearing by burning. That is why actions that promote forest and woods preservation are so important. In 2009, while moving toward sustainability, we enforced our support for “Seal the Deal,” which is part of the UN Global Compact campaign and has a goal to encourage entrepreneurs, government, and society to engage the international agreement on climate change, as discussed by the COP 15 at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen. In addition, we continue to support the Equator Principles, the Millennium Development Goals, and other relevant national and international pledges.