of other responsible environmental and social management practices in the financial sector and banking industry and have provided a platform for engagement with a broad range of interested stakeholders, including non-governmental organizations (NGOs), clients and industry bodies. Members and reporting As of April 2017, 89 financial institutions in 37 countries have officially adopted the Equator Principles. The principles Principle 1: Review and Categorisation Principle 2: Environmental and Social Assessment Principle 3: Applicable Environmental and Social Standards Principle 4: Environmental and Social Management System and Equator Principles Action Plan Principle 5: Stakeholder Engagement Principle 6: Grievance Mechanism Principle 7: Independent Review Principle 8: Covenants Principle 9: Independent Monitoring and Reporting Principle 10: Reporting and Transparency Criticism NGOs have generally welcomed the Principles, but some have expressed criticism over their integrity. A common criticism is that the Principles will not make a real difference. This criticism argues the case of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which, in 2004, was financed by eight Equator Principles' banks and the IFC despite an NGO assessment that found 127 alleged breaches. The banks and IFC said they were confident that the Equator Principles were followed, and said an independent consultant had confirmed this assessment. Another criticism was that the banks might lobby the IFC to weaken its standards on which the Principles are based. The banks point out that IFC revised and strengthened its policies in 2006 and that the banks correspondingly strengthened the Equator Principles in the same year. Other criticisms include alleged lack of enforcement and accountability, free-riders, and that the scope of the principles is limited to project finance only. Several banks have sought to address these concerns by publishing summaries of their Equator Principles screening, including the number of projects they turned down for noncompliance. In 2005 some NGOs said that one of the adopting banks, ABN AMRO (before it was split up in 2010), was the most climate-unfriendly bank in the Netherlands, with estimated annual indirect CO2 emissions of almost 250 million tonnes in 2005 from industries to which it provides financial services. NGOs said this was just over the annual -emissions of the Netherlands and almost 1% of the total annual worldwide CO2 emissions at the time. ABN AMRO defended its environmental record and announced steps to reduce its direct emissions, but some NGOs say it is the indirect emissions through their clients that make global banks such important targets in climate