Britain, China working to scale up green finance

LONDON -- A partnership between government-backed green finance initiatives in Britain and China has made a number of recommendations in a report that will help grow green finance across the globe, said a press release from the City of London Wednesday.

The report, titled Turning Green Momentum into Actions, is the latest contribution from the UK-China Green Finance Taskforce, which was set up by the Green Finance Initiative (GFI) of the City of London and its Chinese counterpart, the Green Finance Committee (GFC) of the China Society for Finance and Banking.

Green finance includes private sector investments in technologies, infrastructure and innovative start-ups that can create jobs and allow businesses to expand, boosting economic growth while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Britain is already a world-leader in green finance and further development will not only assist the transition to a low carbon economy, but also ensure London remains the world's leading global financial center, according to the release.

A key recommendation of the report, and one that has been supported by the People's Bank of China, is the formation of a Green Belt and Road Investor Alliance, which is made up of representatives involved in infrastructure projects including those from multilateral development banks, banks, asset managers, pension funds and contractors from across the globe.

They will work on a new definition for green infrastructure and explore how to combine green finance and the Belt and Road markets, making projects sustainable and profitable.

The alliance will also look to create a financial structure and assessment process that enables private investors to invest alongside the development banks to maximize the amount of capital being deployed along the Belt and Road.

GFI Chairman Sir Roger Gifford said: "The innovative products that both the UK and China are promoting show that the global financial system can not only help to meet environmental and climate concerns on a commercially viable basis, but also serve to unlock vast untapped investment opportunities."

Edward Northam, head of the Green Investment Group, said the Belt and Road Initiative is "a monumental undertaking with the potential to promote green economic growth across a number of geographies".

"We're excited to be a founding member of the Investor Alliance and hope our experience of developing our guiding green investment principles will help the Alliance meet its stated goal of harmonising existing green standards," said Northam.