TCFD means Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures which provides a framework for companies to provide information to investors, lenders, insurers, and other stakeholders.
Support for the TCFD has grown to 792 organizations as of June 2019. In Hong Kong, some noticeable additions of TCFD supporters are: Hong Kong Monetary Authority in May, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited in June, followed by Securities and Futures Commission in July.
What could be the reasons of a sudden surge of interest in this area?
The answer is simple – Climate change is real (See https://climate.nasa.gov/), and we all need to be prepared for the risk, and look out for opportunities!
But how can we identify the climate change risk impacting us – as an individual, or corporate, or investor, or lender?
The key is data disclosure! Without data, we cannot make sound decision to identify potential threats to us, and start to mitigate and manage the risk; nor can we identify other opportunities which could help us to build business resilience or protect our investments. There are plenty of resources to help you with TCFD Disclosure (https://www.tcfdhub.org/).
It also starts with your awareness and commitment, stay tuned with our Green Finance Blog and let’s walk this journey together for a more sustainable future!
Friends of the Earth (HK) 【FoE (HK)】today pledges to Green and Responsible
Investing, divest in fossil fuels and to promote climate responsive investing.
Climate Change and Decarbonisation are FoE (HK)’s
major advocacy focus. Charity starts at home, FoE (HK) believes its pledge to
sustainable treasury management is an effective response to mitigate climate
change.
It also hopes to lead by example to catalyse
other charities and NGOs to consider ESG (Environmental Social Governance)
Investing.
“Do Less Harm. Do More Good. Decarbonise
Philanthropy is the best way to repay the generosity of donors and to safeguard
a resilient environment for our future generation. Earth is tolerant. Youth are
impatient. ESG Investing could be a remedy to neutralise social and ecological
imbalance and conflicts. Social harmony could be redeemed by restorative
economy and eco-socio enterprise,” said Mrs.
Mei Ng, Chairperson of FoE (HK).
FoE (HK) is also honoured to have Dr. Jimmy Chang, Associate Director-General
of InvestHK as our officiating guest. He said, “With strong government
commitments, a great pool of finance and legal talents, as well as tremendous
opportunities arising from the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) and the Greater
Bay Area (GBA) development, Hong Kong is well positioned to develop itself into
a premier green finance hub not only in the region, but also in the world.”
At the “Green Finance Connect” launching
ceremony today, FoE (HK) made an official pledge:
(1)Demonstrate
ESG investing and decarbonise charity
(2) Conduct research on green finance
(3) Incubate green finance human capital
for Hong Kong
Mrs. Mei Ng, Prof. Louis Cheng and Mr. Jean-Louis Nakamura
“Green Finance Connect” launch kickstarted FoE
(HK)’s Green Finance Advocacy Roadmap. Regular roundtables, dialogues and
workshops will be organised to catalyse stakeholder and business sector
interests.
A “Green Finance Blog” has been set up to
facilitate sharing of insights, info, trends, ideas and case studies, about
‘everyone has the ability and option to invest in Green’.
FoE (HK) will commit to take the following actions:
Pledge
for Principles of Responsible Ownership adoption
FoE (HK) pledged to
fully adopt the Principles of Responsible Ownership (“Principles”) issued by
the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) in 2016, and would also advocate
all asset owners, endowments, charities and foundations to align their
investment policies with the Principles.
FoE
(HK) as a pioneer and leader in Green and Responsible Investing
As of June 2019,
Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) is the only asset owner in Hong Kong
pledged adoption of the Principles and FoE (HK) is proud to be the first NGO to
do the same.
Incubate
Green Finance Human Capital
FoE (HK) would advocate industry
practitioners about the importance of green finance and ESG investing. We would
also work with Centre for Economic Sustainability and Entrepreneurial Finance
(CESEF) at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) to incubate green
finance human capital with the “ESG Investment Education Pledge”.
Panel Discussion
Professor
Louis Cheng, Director of the CESEF of PolyU, told the audience, “This ESG Investment Education
Pledge aims to show case FoE (HK)’s financial commitment among NGOs in Hong
Kong and to push for sustainability through ESG investments education. Such a
pledge helps School of Accounting and Finance at PolyU to educate its students
about ESG and its importance through investment research for the Pledge.”
This will enable PolyU students at the
School of Accounting and Finance to conduct research on the HK$10m Green and
Responsible Investment Portfolio (GRIP).
FoE (HK) is pleased and honoured to enlist
the professional support and service of the global wealth and asset manager Lombard
Odier to manage the fund and to mentor the PolyU students in their research.
Jean-Louis
Nakamura, Chief Investment Officer Asia and CEO Hong Kong, Lombard Odier, said, “Sustainability represents for
Lombard Odier the biggest investment opportunity of our century. Throughout our
223-year history, Lombard Odier has embraced a sustainable approach in managing
our clients’ money, consistently rethinking our socially responsible investment
methodologies and tools. We are proud today to support FoE (HK) and CESEF in
their efforts to promote an inclusive way to manage money, accelerate the
necessary changes in business practices and value more sustainable business
models.”
ESG or green investing has undeniably become mainstream in recent years. Despite the continuous debates in the market, it is getting clear that ESG or green investing does no harm.
If you think investing in ESG or green considerations will sacrifice your investment returns, it is the time to think twice.
More academic studies and industry research papers have been addressing to this related topic. According to Stanford University, investors increasingly prioritize climate finance and look for investment opportunities that offer “high returns with high environmental impact.” “After analyzing 74,486 observations of U.S. firms from January 2005 to December 2015, we find that such investment opportunities do exist”. Meta-study by Oxford University also found that in 90% of cases they analyzed environmentally efficient companies have lower costs of capital (both equity and debt) and that eco-efficient and environmentally responsible companies show superior stock market performance. Another industry report also concluded that “increasing exposure to ESG rarely underperforms the market, and often outperforms the market”
It is important to note ESG or green investing would be decomposed into different elements, from underlying data points, ESG rating to investment construction methodology. It would be overly simplistic for one to conclude ESG or green does or does not provide alpha (outperformance) without carefully study each fundamental element.
I guess the baseline here is, ESG doesn’t mean sacrificing returns while it does help you to manage risk as they tend to translate into lower volatility. As global investors are now getting at the forefront of climate change, perhaps it is also the time for you to embrace ESG or green investing.
Credit Agricole, a major global financial institution, recently announced that it will walk away from financing the coal sector — not only the miners but also power plants and infrastructure for coal transport. Credit Agricole is not the first to say no to coal. According to Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), over 100 global financial institutions have already cut back the funding support for coal. (Click here for the report)
The reason for stopping coal is simple — the true cost of coal is high. We are not only talking about the direct measurable cost of getting it out of the ground but more importantly the consequence of damaging the ecosystem and all the cost of burning coal. The carbon releases to the air is among the major source of climate change. With better technology, we can now generate cleaner energy at lower cost. Powering our world without coal is becoming more real.
While coal is still its key source of power, China has been actively diversifying into alternative energy — it is already the world’s largest solar and wind power producer. Hong Kong has been slow in reacting but is catching up. Last year CLP introduced a scheme (Click here for the details) to buy electricity generated by renewable energy. In other words, households and companies can not only reduce their electricity bills but also make good income by installing their own solar power system and sell to CLP. Since then solar power has expanded rapidly in Hong Kong.
This is what we, green finance advisors would like to see. This is what green financing is about — putting capital to build a sustainable world.
