Green Finance Industry Taskforce Green Finance Work Group



White Paper
Fostering Green Finance Solutions





Introduction


Climate change currently poses one of the greatest systemic risks to the global economy. With the frequency and severity of extreme climate events on the rise, stabilising the global climate has become a matter of urgency. However, the scale of investment needed to place the global economy on a path to low-carbon, sustainable growth is beyond the capacity of any public purse. As such, the private sector has a critical role to play in financing these significant climate investment needs. Private financing would also amplify the effectiveness of government climate policies, thereby accelerating the effects of climate action.

Singapore’s central bank and financial regulator, the MAS, is playing a leading role in the country’s efforts to become a premier hub for green finance in Asia and globally. It set up GFIT to drive this initiative with the private sector. The Green Finance Work Group under GFIT researched and consulted with industry players to identify priority sectors that can benefit from the development of green solutions. Within each sector, we explored activities that required support and identified potential measures and solutions that are most appropriate, focusing on enablers and ways to overcome existing barriers. We also identified target outcomes to provide a vision of what success would look like.
From our research and discussions, we found that many priority sectors have a common theme around energy efficiency. The working groups debated on the areas of potential support such as grants and subsidies and development of new products.
Within the corporate sectors, real estate is the most developed, and can be a major differentiator in ASEAN with well-established environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards and practices. Transition in other key industries such as the oil and gas (O&G), shipping, automotive and industrial sectors require further development of the taxonomy and transition frameworks. It is crucial for corporates to have a strong engagement at the C-Suite level to understand the benefits of incorporating ESG factors into long term strategic decisions rather than focusing only on short term price gains from one-off transactions.
Within the financial markets, we also found there is no shortage of capital markets solutions available in international markets. However local take-up has been slower than anticipated due to incomplete data, complexity in execution, and relatively limited pricing benefits. There is a need for market research to prove that sustainable business practices and investments are more resilient and profitable. The pandemic has somewhat provided proof points and catalysed changing behaviour and some differentiation in pricing; greater clarity around taxonomy and disclosure would also be key to driving momentum and behaviour