Cathay United Bank
Cathay United Bank was the first lender to adopt the Equator Principles, back in 2015, and it continues to promote them, encouraging customers and peers to follow suit.
It is the island’s leading financer of solar power, and since 2011 it has provided loans to more than 1,000 projects that serve more than 1.6 million households. In 2016, it completed Taiwan’s first offshore wind power project, which generates 28 megawatts of power, supplies up to 920,000 households, and reduces annual carbon dioxide emissions by around 15,000 metric tonnes.
It has adjusted its lending risk frameworks to ensure that customers adhere to sustainable social and environmental standards. Under chief executive Alan Lee, Cathay United Bank is also a vocal supporter of the government’s ‘2025.20 nuclear-free homeland project’, which aims to make the island free of nuclear energy by 2025, and to boost the contribution of renewable to the overall energy mix to at least 20%.
The bank’s five-stage Green Finance Driver Programme is a statement of intent that would be impressive for any lender. It starts with the aim of creating a sustainable future based on green finance, proceeds through the need to fund projects, and, the bank says, to shatter the stereotype that says traditional banks cannot make our world better. They can – and Cathay United Bank is living proof of this.