Sustainable Banking in China

On 31 August 2016, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) and six other government ministries jointly released the Guidelines for Establishing the Green Financial System, with the goal of stimulating the transition to a green economy. While the guidelines set out a clear policy signal and strong policy framework from the central government, pragmatic implementation at the local provincial level will be the key to the success of this transformation. As a response to the call of the central government in June 2017, five green finance pilot zones were established and committed to vigorously developing local green finance agendas. It is deemed as a move to help upgrade the industrial structure and honor commitments under the framework of the Paris Climate Agreement.

With the objective to support China’s efforts to establish a green financial system and deepen green finance knowledge and practices in China’s financial sector, GIZ partners with the People’s Bank of China Hangzhou Branch to provide capacity building to the senior management from 57 financial institutions in the Zhejiang Green Finance Pilot Zone. The training will serve building professional skills on how to integrate environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors into lending and investment decisions in standard banking operations. It will provide an understanding of domestic and international ESG integration practices and enable peer-to-peer learning among participating banks and experts. The training is hosted by the Zhejiang Finance Society and GIZ, and organized by the Green Finance Committee and Syntao Green Finance with support from UNEP FI.

Events

• Green Banking Training: Mitigating Environmental Risks and Financing Sustainable Growth (23-25 May 2018, Hangzhou/China)

GIZ intends to replicate the green banking training in other green finance pilot provinces.