Construction of China's Green Financial Standard System

In recent years, green finance in my country has been promoted by all parties, and the green financial system has been relatively complete and systematic. China has provided valuable strategic framework and policy guidelines for global green investment. The People's Bank of China follows the principles of "unified domestic, international integration, and clearly enforced", continuously improves the green financial standard system, has made significant progress, and has effectively promoted the rapid development of green finance in my country.

1. Establish a green financial standard working group to establish a top -level architecture

As an important part of my country's green financial policy system, the green financial standard system has also steadily developed. In August 2016, the "Guiding Opinions on Construction of the Green Financial System" jointly issued by the seven ministries and commissions of the People's Bank of China was an important document in the history of my country's green financial development. The document requires to "improve the regulatory mechanism with green finance", including "unified and improved relevant regulatory rules and standards". In January 2018, five ministries and commissions including the People's Bank of China jointly issued the "Construction and Development Plan for the Construction of the Standardized System of the Financial Industry (2016-2020)", pointing out that it is necessary to "establish and improve the mechanism of green financial standardization, and to build green financial standard certification based on green financial standards research system". According to this requirements, in September 2018, the National Financial Standardization Technical Committee established a green financial standard working group to set the basic framework of the green financial standard system to establish a top -level architecture for the formulation of green financial standards. The working group successively released three standards of "Green Bond Support Project Catalog (2021 Edition)", "Guidelines for Environmental Information Disclosure of Financial Institutions", and "Environmental Rights Financing instruments" to lay the foundation for effectively promoting the construction of green financial standards.

Each ministries and commissions also attach great importance to standard construction. In recent years, green financial related policies have fully attached great importance to the relevant content of green financial standards. To promote the sustainable development of green, the innovation of green technology has played a key role, so it is important to build a financial service system that supports green technology companies. In April 2019, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Science and Technology issued the "Guiding Opinions on Building a Market -oriented Green Technology Innovation System" to improve the financial innovation service system that supports green low -carbon technology and provides a series of financing issues facing the development of green technology. Path. In June 2021, the CSRC revised the content and format requirements of the annual and semi -annual reports of listed companies, and added section 5 "Environment and Social Responsibility" to strengthen ESG information disclosure. In December 2021, the nine departments such as the Ministry of Ecology and Environment jointly issued the "Journal of Climate Investment and Financing Pilot Work Plan", which listed reinforced carbon accounting and information disclosure as a key task, encouraged pilot places to establish environmental information sharing platforms. " Standard carbon accounting and climate information disclosure of standards provides convenience. " In June 2022, the CBRC issued the "Green Financial Guidance of the Banking Insurance Industry", which required bank insurance institutions to strengthen the construction of green financial capacity and "establish and improve related business standards and statistical systems."

2. Grasp the key market and promote unified green financial product standards

According to scale, China's two largest green financial markets are the green credit market and the green bond market. As of the end of 2021, my country's green loan balance was 15.9 trillion yuan, and the balance of green bonds was 1.1 trillion yuan. Therefore, unified green credit and green bonds are of great significance.

In 2015, the green bond market in China was launched. The "Green Bond Support Project Catalog (2015 Edition)" issued by the Green Financial Professional Committee of the China Finance Society became the first green debt standard, but the quotation standards for different bond regulators have not been fully unified. A few years later, this problem was basically resolved. In 2021, the People's Bank of China, the National Development and Reform Commission, and the Securities Regulatory Commission jointly issued the "Green Bond Support Project Catalog (2021 Edition)", which realized the unity of the domestic market green bond identification standards. In 2022, the Green Bond Standard Committee issued the "Principles of China Green Bonds", which further unified the principles that should be followed by different green debt varieties. In particular, it was clear that 100%of the fundraising orientation must be used for green projects to ensure the "purity" of green.

In the field of green credit, the People's Bank of China and the CBRC have formulated a statistical system, and there are certain differences between the two statistical systems. In 2019, after the National Development and Reform Commission and others jointly issued the "Green Industry Guidance Catalog (2019 Edition)", the People's Bank of China and the CBRC successively revised the statistical system: in December 2019, the People's Bank of China amended the "Special Statistics System for Green Loan"; 2020 in 2020 In July, the CBRC issued the "Special Statistical System of Green Financing". Because the two basically adopt the main framework and standards of the "Green Industry Guidance Catalog", the overall convergence of green credit statistical standards is achieved as a whole.

In the field of asset management and green investment, the 2018 China Securities Investment Fund Industry Association released the "Green Investment Guidelines (Trial)", which defines the connotation of green investment, clarifies the goals, principles and basic methods of green investment, and guides to engage in green investment activities The fund manager operates in a standardized and professional way. Recently, the CBRC is also developing an ESG investment guidelines for insurance funds to study green investment standards for insurance funds. It is recommended to clarify the relevant principles in terms of product design, investment process, risk recognition and other aspects, formulate a standardized policy for ESG investment information disclosure, and provide guidelines for green investment in insurance funds.

Third, some standards are tried first in the local area. The accumulation of experience in the exploration of green finance involves many products. The development and implementation capabilities of various financial institutions in green finance are different. In addition Green financial standards can be tried first in place, and then pushed to the whole country after the experience matures.

Green Financial Reform and Innovation Pilot Zone provided favorable conditions for some standards. In 2017, my country took the lead in the construction of green financial reform and innovation pilot zones with its own and distinctive features in five provinces and eight provinces in Zhejiang, Jiangxi. After my country's carbon peak carbon and carbon target, the People's Bank of China first tried the environmental information disclosure system and carbon nuclear calculation work in various test areas. Since 2021, the People's Bank of China has published the "Promoting the Work Plan for Environmental Information Disclosure of Green Financial Reform and Innovation Pilot Zone", "Operation Manual for Environmental Information Disclosure of Banking Financial Institutions (Trial)" and "Carbon Calculation Technology Guide for Financial Institutions (Trial), deploy related work. According to the plan, the exploration phase in the first half of 2021 is the exploration phase, the second half of the year is the formulation stage of the rules, and the comprehensive implementation stage in 2022. At present, this work is still ongoing. It is expected that the goal is to accumulate advanced experience and best practice to lay the basis for the measurement method of quantitative measurement and measurement of important environmental indicators such as carbon emissions and carbon reduction displacement of financial institutions.

In addition to the unified deployment of the country, the experimental areas are also independently launched the construction of green financial standards. The most common is the beginning of the construction of the test area. The local government introduced the identification standards for green enterprises and green projects, such as the "Identification Measures for Green Enterprises" and "Identification Measures for Green Projects" in Huadu District, Guangzhou, and "Green Financial Enterprise in Huzhou Evaluation Specifications "and" Evaluation Specifications for Green Financing Projects ", Ganjiang New District" Green Financial Standard System ", Guizhou Province's" Green Financial Project Standards and Evaluation Measures ". Today, the green finance of some test areas has become a system. Taking Huzhou as an example, during the "Thirteenth Five -Year Plan" period, Huzhou formulated 12 local standards for green financial financial, and the "Standards for Significant Green Financial System" was also listed as the first key task for the "14th Five -Year Plan" green financial development.

Fourth, in line with international standards, contribute Chinese wisdom to global green finance

Actively expanding the space of green financial international cooperation is also one of the "five pillars" of my country's green financial policy system. This requires the gradual integration of green financial standards in my country and international standards, and actively participate in the formulation of international standards. In the past few years, my country has also achieved fruitful results in these aspects.

In terms of standard integration, my country strives to be based on the national conditions. Taking the green bond standard as an example, the "Green Bond Support Project Catalog (2015 Edition)" is different from the international standards, and foreign investors have greater doubts about the use of coal cleaning into the green bond directory. This problem was resolved in the new version of "Green Bonds Support Project Catalog (2021 Edition)". Soon after that, China cooperated with the European Union to publish the "Common Finance Common Catalog Catalog" through the EU through the Sustainable Financial International Platform (IPSF), incorporated into the 72 economic activities recognized by the China -EU standards to slow climate change. The comparability, compatibility and consistency of Chinese and foreign green financial standards. This method also contributes Chinese wisdom to other countries and institutions in research and standard formulation.

In terms of the formulation of international standards, my country actively participates in international standards through platforms such as the United Nations and the International Standardization Organization (ISO). In 2018, ISO established the Sustainable Financial Technology Commission (ISO/TC 322), and Chinese expert Ma Jun served as the vice chairman of the chairman consultant group. "And key initiative" was officially released. In 2019, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China participated in the initiative of the United Nations Responsible Bank Principles (PRB), and three Bank of China became the first batch of signed banks. In 2022, the Ministry of Finance of China sent a representative of the Ministry of Finance as a member of the International Sustainable Development Standard Code (ISSB) and joined a special working group aimed at strengthening the compatibility of various market standards.

In summary, after years of development, China's green financial standards have gradually become a system, which has consolidated the long -term development of my country's green finance. Looking forward to the future, the construction of green financial standards in my country can work in the following aspects: First, to enrich green financial product standards, especially to formulate green funds, green insurance, green trusts, green leasing, carbon finance and other product standards, expand the coverage of green financing standards , And improve green rating and certification to prevent "green -washing" behavior. The second is to improve the disclosure of ESG and environmental information disclosure, and promote the disclosure of mandatory information, so that investors and other related parties can identify and evaluate the green level of projects, assets, enterprises and financial institutions. The third is to gradually improve the ESG evaluation standards of Green Fund, and effectively connect green investment, responsible investment, climate investment financing, and sustainable finance. The fourth is to establish a green financial standard for helping the "double carbon" goal, formulate transformation financial frameworks, and unify the carbon nuclear calculation and carbon disclosure methods at the asset level of financial institutions. Fifth, the factors of social and corporate governance are gradually incorporated into the framework of green financial standards to form an ESG standard system and investment index system that connects with green finance. Sixth, continue to promote the integration of green financial standards at home and abroad, actively participate in the formulation of international standards, and play a leading role in key areas such as green and low -carbon development, green transformation and sustainable development. This article was published in "Financial Expo", No. 9, 2022

Author: Guo Peiyuan An Guojun

references

(1) An Guojun, the green financial innovation path of carbon neutrality and target, Southern Finance, 2021, 2021

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(3) Zhu Yanxia, ​​steadily and orderly promoting insurance capital ESG investment, Bank of China Insurance News, September 23, 2021, http://xw.cbimc.cn/2021-09/23/Content_410283.htmm

(4) Lei Yan, actively promote the pilot of carbon accounting of financial institutions, China Finance, No. 22, 2021

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