MILAN, Italy, 6 March 2024: Deutsche Bank announced that it has launched a sustainability-linked finance programme for Epta’s supply chain. Making the announcement through a Press release, Epta said, this is the first programme of its kind for a business in the commercial refrigeration industry and is designed to provide financial incentives to its suppliers to improve their sustainability performance. Furthermore, Epta said launching initially in Italy, the programme is set to be rolled out globally.

Epta said that the supply chain finance (SCF) programme means that its suppliers can receive payment immediately after an invoice has been approved by the company, with the financing costs for the suppliers being based on its creditworthiness. Epta also said that an added benefit of this sustainability-linked SCF is that suppliers can further reduce financing costs in the supply chain if they improve their ESG rating – in this case, an ESG rating by the global sustainability rating platform, EcoVadis. Furthermore, Epta said, the more sustainable a supplier operates, the greater the pricing benefit.

The programme, Epta said, is designed to build responsible, resilient supply chains and ensure the company meets and exceeds the ever-changing sustainability expectations from our customers, investors and other key stakeholders. In addition, Epta said that it is able to analyse the performance of each supplier to identify its strengths and areas for improvement, using the EcoVadis evaluation model.

Paolo Maestri, Head of Corporate Bank Italy, Deutsche Bank, said: “Sustainability plays an increasingly important role for supply chains. By implementing ESG-linked solutions into their supply chain finance programmes we help our clients to develop incentives for their suppliers.”

Simone Salani, Group Purchasing & Procurement Director, Epta, said: “The finance programme developed with Deutsche Bank is an additional milestone in our mission of being the green transition Enabler in the commercial refrigeration sector. Less than a year ago, we announced a partnership with EcoVadis to stimulate our entire supply chain to be more transparent and sustainable. We are proud to take a further step in this direction, and we believe the decision to support our sustainable partners is a strong message to the market and our stakeholders”.