On July 18, 2019, the “Seminar on Sustainable Banking Development Path and Green Finance” was held by IB in Shanghai. Experts and scholars from the Green Finance Committee of the China Banking Association, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Green Finance Research Centre of Fudan University and the University of Waterloo, Canada as well as the representatives from more than 10 banks, attended the seminar and held in-depth discussions on environmental and social risk management in the banking industry, sustainable banking development strategies and product innovation at home and abroad, offering advice and suggestions for the sustainable development of China’s financial industry.
Recent years, with the steady advancement of China’s green development strategy, green finance has embraced a major development opportunity. In the process of serving green development, how commercial banks can achieve a balanced and harmonious development between social and economic benefits, thereby promoting sustainable development, has received widespread attention from the industry and was an important topic of this forum.
Professor Olaf Weber, the Principal Research Fellow in Sustainable Finance at the University of Waterloo, Canada, and President of the Canadian Association of Environmental Finance for Export Development, shared his research findings on the significant negative correlation between the share of green credit and banks’ non-performing rates in China. He argued that the relationship between sustainable banking and financial performance is no longer a “trade-off”, but can be reduced through risk management and green innovative products so as to result in higher financial returns. Experts at the conference also gave ‘prescriptions’ for the problems faced in the development of green finance, such as reducing the risk weighting of green assets, giving priority to green bonds and financial support for ecological restoration of abandoned mines.
As a pioneer of green finance in China, the IB representative shared its sustainable development path of “integrating righteousness with profitability, from Green to Gold”.
IB took the lead in opening the green finance business in 2006, became the first EPFI in mainland China to voluntarily adopt the Equator Principles in 2008, and now, has formed a group but various green finance product and service system covering green financing, green leasing, green trust, green fund, green wealth management and green consumption, and become the largest commercial financial institution in the world with the largest balance of green finance bonds issued. Through continuous innovation in its business model, IB has explored a unique path of sustainable development by organically combining corporate social responsibility with business practices.
In the meanwhile, IB has always been committed to disseminating and practicing sustainable finance. In recent years, it has established strategic cooperation on green finance with a number of small and medium-sized banks, and also relied on its pioneering bank-bank platform cooperation model to attract more financial peers to participate in the construction of China’s green finance system, and jointly promoted the sustainable development of commercial banks.
During the conference, IB Research, a member of the IB Group, also signed a memorandum of cooperation with IFC on the Support Project for Sustainable Banking Development, committing to in-depth cooperation in the field of sustainable finance research.