Industrial Bank
Industrial Bank is a pioneer in China’s green finance sector. It started making green loans in 2006 and was the first Chinese bank to adopt the Equator Principles, an internationally recognized, risk-management framework for financial institutions to determine, assess and manage environmental and social risks in projects.
The bank stood out last year for its strong commitment to expanding the supply of green finance and its leadership in advocating international best practice in this field.
Industrial Bank was the largest issuer of green bonds overall in 2018, with total issuance of Rmb60 billion ($8.7 billion) in the domestic market and two batches of green bonds overseas – one for $600 million, the other for €300 million.
Even though it is a second-tier national commercial bank in China, it is a big provider of green loans in the domestic banking sector. In 2016, the bank set itself the target of funding more than 10,000 projects with green finance by 2020: by the end of February 2019, it had already provided more than Rmb1.8 trillion in total to as many as 17,276 projects in a wide range of industries by tapping into its green loans and green bond proceeds, while the balance of its green loans exceeded Rmb864 billion.
Industrial Bank has stuck firmly to the Equator Principles: as of February 2019, it had examined 1,075 potential green finance projects; of these, only 403 (a total investment of Rmb1.7 trillion) were deemed compliant. Using those same principles, the bank has signed partnership agreements with 20 city and rural commercial banks to jointly develop green finance in China and help them improve risk management for investments in projects funded by green finance.