Abstract: The Equator Principles are designed as the financial industry standards to determine, assess and manage environmental and social risks in project financing. By analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of commercial banks joining the Equator Principles, as well as the quantitative study conducted on the Industrial Bank and the similar comparable banks with the method of global principal component analysis, it is found that after joining the Equator Principles, the financial conditions of the Industrial Bank has been improved greatly compared with similar comparable banks, the scores every year are better than the mean value of similar comparable banks; however, a slight decline of the scores is also found during that period. In the short term, the Equator Principles would generate a slightly negative impact on the operating efficiency of commercial banks (mainly liquidity), but in the medium and long term, the commercial banks which have joined the Equator Principles will experience more rapid development than the similar comparable banks.

Key words: equator principles; operational efficiency; GPCA