Inquiry Community: International Institute for Sustainable Development
Inquiry Publications
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Bangladesh Country Report
Date: 09-Oct-2015Bangladesh has been a leader in developing policies to shape a greener and more inclusive financial system. It has a suite of green banking regulations and policies including concessional green refinancing, credit quotas for green finance and guidance and requirements on environmental due diligence. Green finance is growing but it remains modest compared to the scale of Bangladesh’s
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China Report
Date: 06-Oct-2015The Inquiry collaborated in an 18-month project, Greening China’s Financial System, carried out by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and the Finance Research Institute (FRI), Development Research Center (DRC) of the State Council. The aim was to develop specific proposals for greening China’s financial system, based on an analysis of current practice in China
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China Report: Monetary Policy and Green Finance
Date: 06-Oct-2015Monetary policy has been largely neglected in the worldwide discussions on green finance. Similarly, most central banks have not even started thinking about their role in helping society reach its environmental objectives and about the potential implications of environmental degradation for their mandates. Bringing light to this blind spot is critical. This report aims to
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China Report: Internalizing Climate Mitigation for Financial Policy-Makers
Date: 06-Oct-2015The paper also shows how the objectives of financial policy-makers—such as investor protection, transparency, maintaining the safety and soundness of financial firms, financial stability, tackling systemic risk, reducing information asymmetries, tacking market failures and developmental objectives— offer multiple avenues to legitimize policy measures that can contribute to the greening of the financial system. In particular,
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China Report: A Systemic View of the Insurance Industry and Sustainable Development
Date: 06-Oct-2015The contribution of the insurance industry to sustainable development relates to its three roles as a financial loss “shock absorber” in reducing real risks to assets, in safety and health, and as a significant investor in the real economy. Particular areas where the insurance industry is responding to sustainable development challenges are in relation to
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China Report: Greening China’s Bond Market
Date: 06-Oct-2015This reports rovides an overview of the green bonds theme, innovative structures in the international market and potential application in China. A key message is that green finance, in addition to providing a green benefit, can assist in implementing and enforcing financial reforms that address imbalances in China’s financial system. Another message is that providing
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China Report: Alignment of Investment Strategies with Climate Scenarios
Date: 06-Oct-2015Financial institutions today are unable to measure their exposure to climate change. There are equally no approaches to inform on the alignment of their investment strategies with national or international environmental goals. This report outlines international developments in measuring and managing climate related risk in instituional investment and banking. It outlines implications for regulators in
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China Report: A Framework for Green Finance
Date: 06-Oct-2015The existence of externalities has made it hard to quantify the intrinsic value of the “green mountains and blue water” of the natural environment. This has led to a dysfunction in traditional financial markets, which are delivering an insufficient supply of capital for green development and an oversupply of capital for highly polluting activities. As a new financial
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China Report: Demand for Green Finance
Date: 06-Oct-2015This paper reviews the statistics on investment in fixed assets of key green sectors in China to date and estimates the demand for green finance over the next five years, from 2015 to 2020. It estimates over 3 per cent of GDP—RMB 1,642 billion (USD 260 billion)—was invested into core green industry and infrastructure sectors in 2012.
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China Report: Environmental and Industrial Policy Environment
Date: 06-Oct-2015This paper outlines the frameworks of Chinese law and policy concerning environmental protection, public investment, financial policy and industrial policy and the challenges they face. Policy and Legal Frameworks: Over the past 20 years, China has built up a comprehensive system of laws,regulations, rules, standards and guidance on environmental protection. However, challenges remain an inadequate institutional