It is my pleasure to welcome you all to the United Nations Sustainable Investing and ESG Conference 2022.

Climate change is an imminent issue for all of us. The report presented by General Secretary Xi Jinping at the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China clearly stressed the support for the development of green finance. We have the responsibility to support the country’s “30·60” targets for carbon emission reduction. Hong Kong can leverage its unique advantages as an international financial centre and facilitate matching global capital with quality green projects.

To provide important benchmarks for potential issuers and funding for various green projects in Hong Kong, the HKSAR Government has issued close to US$10 billion equivalent of green bonds. This includes our inaugural issuance of retail green bonds totalling HK$20 billion in May 2022, the largest retail green bond issuance across the globe at that time. The introduction of Government retail green bonds has further broadened the variety of green and sustainable financial products in Hong Kong.

We have also earmarked $200 million for launching the three-year Pilot Green and Sustainable Finance Capacity Building Support Scheme to provide subsidies to market practitioners as well as prospective practitioners in taking up training and capacity building opportunities with regard to green and sustainable finance.

We will continue to work with financial regulators and the trade to strengthen the financial sector’s resilience to climate risks and to capitalise on the relevant opportunities.

Businesses have been concerned with their social and environmental impacts for as long as private enterprise has existed. The way we talk about and judge the social and environmental performance of firms, though, is becoming more and more sophisticated. Currently, “ESG” metrics – environmental, social and governance – have become a pivotal way to how firms achieve those objectives outside the finance sphere.  As we are all aware, businesses can no longer avoid their responsibility to make drastic changes to how they conduct their business to avoid worsening the effects of climate change and social issues such as inequality.

As businesses evolve more sophisticated ways to transform their environmental footprints and social impacts, the networks and structures around them also change. The ESCAP Sustainable Business Network, a forum for regional businesses concerned with sustainable development, has launched the Asia-Pacific Green Deal for Business, a platform for motivating real action on the societal and environmental problems facing us all. The Green Deal calls on businesses to scale up their efforts to strengthen the following:

• Green energy
• Green infrastructure and logistics
• Green finance
• Green innovation
• Green production, consumption and waste.

At this year’s Sustainable Investing and ESG Conference, we hope to hear and learn more from all participants about their positive impacts on sustainable development. We ask all business representatives present to consider whether signing up for the Asia-Pacific Green Deal for Business will help your business amplify its impact by connecting you with like-minded business people in the region who are taking action on common areas of interest. By sharing best practices, providing exposure to businesses contributing to better development outcomes, and allowing people to share ideas on social impact, we hope to contribute to a better world for businesses and societies.

World Green Organisation (WGO) is pleased to collaborate, once again, with the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), to host the third Sustainable Investing Conference. We are thankful for the continuous support from our Conference Partners, the Financial Services Development Council (FSDC) and Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX). This year, we have a new partner, Cyberport, which is committed to integrating new and traditional economies by accelerating digital adoption in the public and private sectors. WGO is also honored to join the IFRS Sustainability Alliance, and member of ISSB will speak in our event.

Global economy (GDP) doubled in a decade, standing at US$ 60 trillion in 2010, and reaching US$ 94 trillion in 2020 according to the World Bank. The stock of financial assets globally was estimated at US$360 trillion. Global bonds reached US$103 trillion in 2018 and global equities were around US$75 trillion. The extraordinary economic growth of the past 50 years has come at a price. Pandemic had push more than 34 million people into extreme poverty in 2020. 60% of the world’s ecosystems have been degraded. Species extinction rates are 100-1000 times faster than those suggested by fossil records, with over 100 species going extinct every day. Rapid economic growth led to heavy consumption of natural resources and rising consumer demand through consumerism.

Entering the era of Green Finance, our world starts to realize that much of the financial analysis does not include the dependency or impact on people or the environment. The analysis tends to focus on the narrow financial performance of a company or industry. This disconnection between long-term impact, such as, climate disasters and short-term financial gain – Short Termism in the decision making process should be addressed. The short-term outlook of the finance sector prevents most actors from seeing the real price for environmental risks. Large-scale social and environmental costs are not incorporated into the P/L and Balance Sheet. A full and effective impact assessment is still lacking, not to mention the robust data in social and environmental dimension.

We are now at a critical moment for ESG consolidation and alignment, facing many disclosure landscape – a series of “hard-to-decode” alphabet – GRI, SASB, TCFD, CDSB, CDP, IRRC, VRF, and others. Instead of merely a new requirement of compliance in sustainability reporting, corporations should incorporate ESG principles and values in their DNA to help achieve the sustainable development goals, alongside with their bottom line.

It is encouraging to see that the number of supporting corporations for this Conference has grown drastically. This reflects stakeholders are willing to come together and explore how Hong Kong and ASEAN countries can play its role in creating a sustainable future, and I hope we seize the opportunity to pledge for Asia Pacific Green Deal for Business!