Green finance plays an important role in comprehensively promoting the building of a Beautiful China. The Opinions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Comprehensively Promoting the Construction of a Beautiful China (hereinafter referred to as the Opinions), which was released recently, explicitly proposes to vigorously develop green finance and provide financing support for the building of a Beautiful China.
As a pioneer of green finance in China, Industrial Bank has always been the main force to serve the building of a Beautiful China. Centering around the requirements outlined in the Opinions, including comprehensive transformation, all-round improvement, nationwide development, and universal participation, the Bank provides financing services and financial expertise, continuously enhancing its reputation as a “green bank” while servicing the economic and social transformation towards green and low-carbon development. As of the end of 2023, Industrial Bank’s green finance reached 1.89 trillion yuan, representing a 17% increase from the beginning of the year. Among this, the balance of green loans amounted to 810.3 billion yuan, marking a 27% increase from the beginning of the year. These figures demonstrate Industrial Bank’s dedication to advancing green finance in China and contributing to the building of a Beautiful China.
Exploring Financing for Transformation and Facilitating Transformation Across All Sectors
The Opinions propose vigorously promoting the green and low-carbon development of the economy and society, accelerating the green and low-carbon transformation in areas such as energy, industry, transportation, urban construction, and agriculture, strengthening green innovation, and boosting internal dynamism and fostering innovation to build a Beautiful China.
According to estimates, the green industry accounts for about 10% of China’s total economy, while traditional industries related to transformation account for 30% to 40% of China’s total economy, indicating a vast market for financing for transformation. In recent years, Industrial Bank has actively kept its eyes on the green financing needs of traditional industries during their transformation, vigorously supporting energy-intensive enterprises in clean energy substitution, serving the construction of new power systems, and promoting green and low-carbon transformation in industries such as steel, non-ferrous metals, petrochemicals, and chemicals.
During green upgrading and transformation, many enterprises, especially traditional industrial manufacturing enterprises, face significant financial pressures, whether in restructuring or optimizing production technology.
In Changchun City, a key northern industrial center in Jilin Province, a local steel company was under increasing financial pressure since it has successively carried out a series of green upgrading and transformation projects to achieve power generation from waste heat recovery, flue-gas desulfurization, and dust removal, etc. To support the power generation from the waste heat recovery project, Industrial Bank promptly tailored a comprehensive green financing solution for the company, providing a green loan worth of 220 million yuan. This project is estimated to reduce industrial carbon dioxide emissions by 1 million tons annually after being put into operation, promoting the green transformation and development of the company.
In addition, with its professional expertise in green finance, Industrial Bank continues to research the pathways of low-carbon transformation in various fields, such as construction, transportation, manufacturing, etc. and provides non-financial services alongside financial services for relevant industries, including assisting enterprises in measuring carbon emissions through digital means, evaluating their carbon performance, key emission reduction potentials, and the direction of green and low-carbon transformation, to provide more suitable supporting financial products and service programs and build a system of financial products for green transformation.
At present, Industrial Bank’s system of financial products for transformation is increasingly sound. In 2023, the bank successfully launched its first batch of financial loans for transformation and the first product carbon footprint-based loan. Throughout the year, a total of 177 sustainable development-based financial products were launched, with a total financing amount of 7 billion yuan. By creatively offering interest rate incentives to encourage enterprises to reduce carbon emissions, the Bank has effectively promoted the green and low-carbon development of the economy and society.
Focusing on Carbon Reduction and Pollution Reduction to Promote All-round Enhancement
Beautiful China requires blue water and blue sky. The Opinions point out the need to coordinate factors and integrate urban and rural areas, to carry out the integrated building of a series of “Beautifuls”, and to create a Beautiful China where everything is beautiful and the beauty of each is shared by all.
Over the past 10 years in green finance, Industrial Bank has adhered to the principle of “fulfilling social responsibilities while pursuing economic returns and protecting nature as an invaluable asset”, and actively served the building of a beautiful blue sky, beautiful rivers and lakes, beautiful bays and beautiful mountains, so as to preserve nature as the invaluable asset.
Environmental protection projects often involve multiple stakeholders and yield public benefits. Therefore, effectively integrating these projects with relevant industries that have good economic returns is a commercially sustainable approach to their implementation.
The Baimo River Beautiful Village Ecological Complex Project in Qionglai City is the first Eco-environment-oriented Development (EOD) project that has been included in the national EOD project repository in Sichuan Province. It promotes the construction of embankments and water infrastructure in the Baimo River basin and realizes the integrated development of the tea industry, agriculture and tourism by fostering cultural tourism, offering agricultural picking experiences, and selling agricultural products. To support the project, Industrial Bank promptly provided a 120-million-yuan green loan, helping the local community to realize economic benefits from the beautiful natural scenery.
To give full play to the power of green finance, Industrial Bank has actively helped fight the three major battles for the protection of blue sky, blue water and clean soil. The Bank has created innovative products, including pollution discharge rights mortgage loans, carbon asset pledge loans, forest rights mortgage loans, sunshine loans, environmental protection loans, water-saving loans, etc., to increase its efforts in providing green finance services, and to help “reduce carbon emissions, reduce pollution, expand green coverage, and realize economic development”.
As of the end of 2023, the scale of Industrial Bank’s green finance in the carbon reduction sector reached 1.0649 trillion yuan, and reached 419.5 billion yuan in the pollution reduction sector, effectively serving a low-carbon economy, circular economy, and ecological economy, and promoting the comprehensive building of a Beautiful China.
Serving the Entire Country with Both Financial Services and Expertise
The Opinion proposes that a Beautiful China should be built nationwide in accordance with local conditions and in a gradual manner, so as to have a regionally distinctive Beautiful China.
From the desolate deserts in the west to the golden coasts in the east, green energy is now booming all over the country. Industrial Bank continues to improve its operational system of green finance, promotes the Ten Thousand Green Finance Talents project, sets up specialized green finance institutions across the country, and provides tailored green finance services and expertise to support local green development.
Upholding national strategies, Industrial Bank focuses on the green development needs of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, the Yellow River Basin, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and Fujian Province, providing targeted green financing services, proactively participating and serving the collaboration between eastern and western China, and helping to transform local energy resources into economic advantages. As of the end of 2023, Industrial Bank’s 13 branches in the Yangtze River Economic Belt have provided green finance totaling 819.8 billion yuan, while its 10 branches in the Yellow River Basin have provided 342.9 billion yuan.
In Harbin City, the Ice City, Industrial Bank continuously enriches its financial products based on the pursuit of Harbin in building itself into the “Capital of Ice and Snow Culture” and focusing on sectors including food, accommodation, transportation, tourism, shopping and entertainment, fostering the development of ice and snow tourism, ice and snow manufacturing, ice and snow sports and other “ice and snow” industries. Up to now, Industrial Bank Harbin Branch issued nearly 4 billion yuan of loans for “ice and snow” industries, and 70,000 “ice and snow sports” credit cards, promoting the rapid growth of the ice and snow economy.
The combination of financial services and expertise serves the green transformation of local economies. In recent years, Industrial Bank has signed strategic cooperation agreements on green finance with Guizhou, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Qinghai, Jilin, Yunnan, and Chongqing. At the same time, the Bank has fostered innovation in climate investment and financing and signed strategic cooperation agreements on climate investment and financing with Baotou, Baoding, Chongqing, Xixian New Area, etc. to actively contribute to its wisdom.
Promoting Zero-Carbon Operations and Leading Society to Action
The building of a Beautiful China cannot be achieved without a green and low-carbon lifestyle. The Opinions propose turning the building of a Beautiful China into the conscious action of all people and encourage grassroots units such as parks, communities and schools to carry out activities to raise people’s awareness of living a green, clean and zero-carbon life, so as to form a good social atmosphere in which everyone participates and shares the benefits.
On April 24, 2021, Industrial Bank took a pioneering step in China’s banking industry by signing a commitment letter to adopt the Climate Neutral Now Initiative launched by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). As part of this initiative, the Bank has systematically reduced its carbon emissions and established its own targets and roadmap for achieving carbon neutrality.
According to reports, Industrial Bank has participated in the “Earth Hour” lights-out event for more than ten consecutive years. It piloted the construction of green branches through measures such as energy conservation and emission reduction in building operations, energy conservation and emission reduction in data centers, and green transportation, responding to the call for green and low-carbon development through practical actions.
Green and low-carbon development require the participation of everyone, and Industrial Bank actively facilitates this through the allocation of green finance resources. For individual customers, it issued credit cards themed on green and low-carbon lifestyles, encouraging cardholders to engage in environmentally friendly practices through affordable consumption. Moreover, in collaboration with Xiamen Airlines, it introduced the country’s first batch of “carbon-neutral tickets,” enabling passengers to contribute to carbon emissions reduction during air travel by purchasing tickets labeled as “carbon-neutral.” For corporate clients, Industrial Bank has developed the “Dual Carbon Management Platform,” encompassing corporate and personal carbon accounts, as well as group-level operational carbon emissions management. To date, it has established carbon accounts for over 1,700 corporate customers and implemented various carbon reduction-based businesses and carbon asset pledge programs based on these accounts.
1 Beautifuls: Beautiful blue sky, beautiful rivers and lakes, beautiful bays, and beautiful mountains