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Chinese banks and environmental reporting |
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 [30.09.2008] Chinese commercial banks should establish environmental reporting, assessment, management, and risk evaluation systems to promote sustainable development in China, according to a new report today from WWF and the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), the country’s financial and monetary regulatory agency.
Towards Sustainable Development: Reform and (the) Future of China’s Banking Industry from WWF and the central bank’s Financial Research Institute is the first high-level report on sustainable development in China’s banking sector.
The report stresses the growing importance of commercial banks in China’s effort to realize its national sustainable development strategy and provides specific recommendations on environmental policy changes.
While the banking industry is beginning to pay attention to sustainable development, the report calls on governments, non-government organizations, and the finance sector to drive commercial banks’ commitment into action.
Over the past few years, PBoC has been driving sustainable banking through its monetary, interest rate and credit policies. In 2007, the central bank consolidated an environmental database of Chinese companies, requiring commercial banks to review and weigh each applicant’s environmental history before granting their credit applications. In the same year, PBoC along with the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) and the China Banking and Regulatory Commission (CBRC) established a green credit system. This regulated the availability of credit to companies in violation of environmental laws.
The report in Chinese is available at WWF website
Source: WWF
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