Sustainable and responsible investment is very important for Hong Kong, as it can help the city tackle its own environmental problems while having a positive influence on the region, according to Alexandra Boakes Tracy, chairman of Association for Sustainable and Responsible Investment in Asia (ASrIA).

ASrIA is a Hong Kong-based not-for-profit membership association dedicated to promoting sustainable finance and responsible investment (SRI) in the Asia Pacific. SRI is about investing for the long term, and it's about sensible risk management and doing full due diligence, Tracy said on the sidelines of the roundtable.

Responsible investment is extremely important in Hong Kong for two reasons: First, Hong Kong itself has environmental challenges - it is a small place with quite a dense population where air-quality problems, waste and landfill problems exist, said Tracy.

"We need to tackle all of these issues by investing sensibly, trying to invest in new technologies that can help (in solving) those issues," she said.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong is an international financial center that plays a very important role in Asia. A sophisticated capital market endows the city with a great influence on what might happen in the region's financial industry.

"Here is the real opportunity for Hong Kong, to have those strong (investors) stand here and build the green finance industry in the city and influence the rest of the region."

Professional and players in the financial industry can contribute to SRI by trying to get more information, said Tracy, adding that in order to invest responsibly, investors need to do proper due diligence, and also need to understand the environmental issues. The only way one can carry out due diligence is by pushing a company to give the data, by asking them questions about their pollution rate, about their carbon emissions, and about their environmental policies, she said.

Tracy points out that investors around the world are getting more information and they are coming together to do it, but unfortunately, this was not the case in Hong Kong or in Asia where few are doing this. So, the first thing the professionals in Asia and Hong Kong need to start thinking about is due diligence.

She also stressed that in promoting sustainable and responsible investment, ASrIA is trying to make it clear that it understands that investing is about profit, making returns and managing risks. ASrIA believes that the investment process can be improved, but one does not need to sacrifice any returns to do a good thing for the planet.

"We really think that the two things (sustainability and profit) can go together."

She said that ASrIA was founded in 2001, and in those days, people didn't talk very much about environmental issues when talking about investments. There were few, if any, investment funds in Asia that looked into these area, as there was very little regulation on these issues, either from stock exchanges or other regulatory bodies.

But now, there are huge differences with more than 400 funds in Asia that have sustainable approaches in their policies, and stock exchanges all over Asia now have new disclosure regulations on these kind of issues, including new laws, like China's green IPO policy, noted Tracy.

"We'd like to think that we (ASrIA) played a part in helping to drive that whole process," she added.

sophiehe@chinadailyhk.com

(HK Edition 01/22/2013 page2)