Industrial Bank Featured in the "China Green Companies Top 100” for 5 Consecutive Years

On April 20, the “2014 China Green Companies Top 100”, a cross-sector ranking for assessing the sustainable competitiveness of enterprises, was announced, and Industrial Bank (IB) stood out of more than 1,300 large SOEs, private enterprises and multinationals in China with “sustainable finance” and featured in the list for the fifth year consecutively, becoming one of the most listed companies.

It is said that the program of China Green Companies Top 100 was initiated by China Entrepreneur Club and has been issued for five consecutive years by now. The ranking of this year is characterized by “selecting based on economic indexes and short listing based on characteristic performance”. Listed enterprises need to have outstanding performance in the five aspects including “culture, economy, environment, society and innovation” and typical cases of performance in any of the three aspects including “environment, society and innovation” which are of demonstrative industrial and social effect.

Boosting the “Clean Water Program” and Singing the Highest Pitch of “Beautiful China”

In the “Report on 2014 China Green Companies Top 100”, the “Clean Water Program” of IB was selected as a typical case.

As revealed in the case, across 2013 the green finance of IB focused on the utilization and protection of water resource to boost the “Clean Water” Program constantly. The program provided Shuangliu County of Sichuan Province with financing of RMB 2 billion to support the construction of the comprehensive control project for water environment, granted loans of RMB 1.6 billion to Hefei of Anhui Province, to support its riverway regulation, provided Wujin County of Jiangsu Province with credit support of RMB 150 million for the transformation project of rainwater and sewage pipe networks of an industrial park…

By the end of 2013, IB has provided financing support of RMB 61.1 billion for the utilization and protection of water resource, which are estimated to reduce the emission of chemical oxygen demand (COD) by 901,200 tons and save water by 255.7906 million tons.

In practice, IB has kept enriching and improving the product and service system for “water control”, releasing comprehensive service programs integrating characteristic products (model), including contract environmental service based financing and franchise and business rights pledged financing, through basic product combination and innovation, so as to provide integrated solutions for the development and protection of water resources, water conservation, and construction and operation comprehensive facilities.

Besides the direct financing support for water control, IB also actively drove the construction of emission rights trading markets across China with a view to bringing into play the effect of pollution control by market-based means. Now, the Bank has signed cooperation agreements with 9 of the 11 provinces and municipalities establishing state-level carbon trading pilots. In the area of carbon finance, it also holds a leading position, entering into cooperation agreements with 6 of the 7 provinces and municipalities establishing state-level carbon trading pilots. Bringing into full play its advantages in green finance, the Bank provides a package of financial services including design of trading framework and rules, and depository and clearing of funds, thus promoting energy conservation and emission reduction by means of market-oriented methods and financial innovation.

To boost local energy conservation and emission reduction and offer ideas on regional transformation, IB launched the campaign of “Beautiful China Tour • Green Finance” in 2013, which reached 12 provinces and municipalities and lasted for 224 days. Signing agreements with the development and reform commissions, environmental protection departments or leading energy conservation and emission reduction enterprises of 12 municipalities including Shijiazhuang, Jinan, Chongqing, Harbin, Ningbo, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Urumchi, Nanjing, Wuhan, Changsha, and Huhhot, the Bank promised to provide green financial support of over RMB 300 billion to the above regions during the “12th Five-year Planning” period, singing the highest pitch in the banking sector to support the building of “Beautiful China” with its actual actions.

An All-sided “Green Bank” Built by Sticking to Green Finance

Starting with the first energy conservation and emission reduction loan in China released in collaboration with International Finance Corporation (IFC) in 2006 and taking it as a sign of becoming the first Equator Bank in China to promise to the public to adopt the Equator Principles in 2008, IB has committed itself to the development of green financial businesses for years, opening a road of sustainable development from “green” to “gold”. This also, beyond dispute, makes the Bank feature itself in the “China Green Companies Top 100” for five consecutive years.

Over the five years, under the guide of the philosophy of sustainable development, IB has established a management system matching the green concept at decision-making management, organizational structure, system construction, business flow and corporate culture. Just as what Gao Jianping, Board Chairman of IB, said, “the green concept of IB is a philosophy of sustainable development, running through all of the bank’s business areas”.  

With constant innovation and upgrading over the five years, the bank’s green financial product system has built up a multi-layered and integrated system of products and services, which covers financial products, service models and solutions, and mainly includes ten general-purpose products, seven characteristic products, five financing models and seven kinds of solutions. It covers three major fields: low-carbon economy, recycling economy and ecological economy, and involves a variety of projects such as improvement of energy efficiency, development and utilization of new energy and renewable energy, carbon emission reduction, sewage treatment and water area control, reduction of sulfur dioxide emission, and recycling of solid wastes in the mainstream sectors, including energy, construction, transport and industry, etc. IB has become the bank with the broadest green finance product family and the most diversified products at home.

Over the five years, IB's business scale in green finance witnessed fast development and increasingly prominent environmental and social benefits. By the end of 2013, the projects which have been recognized to be applicable to the Equator Principles under the examination of IB reached 180, 20 times as great as the figure at the end of 2009, and involved total investment of 270.9 billion, 43 times as great as that at the end of 2009. The number of green finance customers hit 2,472, about 12 times the number at the end of 2009, and the green finance based financing balance reached RMB 178.117 billion, 12.72 times as great as the figure at the end of 2009. By the end of 2013, the Bank has provided more than RMB 340 billion of green finance based financing loans with a variety of financial tools, and the projects supported could save more than 23.30 million tons of coal equivalents within China each year, reduce more than 68 million tons of carbon dioxide emission, utilize more than 15 million tons of solid waste in an integrated manner, and save more than 255 million tons of water. The energy conserved and emission reduced is equivalent to shutting off 157 thermal power plants of 100 MW or stopping running100,000 taxis for 47 years.