The report highlights the essential role fintech plays in the transition to a low carbon economy in China and beyond.
Chicago, IL (August 31, 2022)—Today, the Paulson Institute’s Green Finance Center, in collaboration with the Beijing Institute of Finance and Sustainability (IFS), released a new report, Fintech Facilitates the Sustainable Development of Green Finance in China: Cases and Outlook (2022). The report is part of a continuation of research that began in 2020. It draws on the latest trends and practices in fintech, detailing how it can transform business as usual to spur an acceleration of green finance to encourage China’s low carbon transition.
This year’s report provides key recommendations, an update on four case studies from 2020 and 2021, and introduces three new cases demonstrating fintech’s role in supporting China’s green development. The new case studies highlight three best-in-class initiatives that promote green agriculture development, protect local biodiversity, and support inclusive growth of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) through more accessible green financing. All three projects aim to provide practical solutions for using fintech to achieve environmental goals in China and beyond.
“China is a global testing ground for innovation in green finance—we see this in the development of digital, financial technologies helping to accelerate green growth. This report analyzes some of the latest developments and offers useful insights about the future of green fintech,” said Deborah Lehr, Vice Chairman and Executive Director of the Paulson Institute.
Dr. Jun Ma, President of the Institute of Finance and Sustainability, said, “Fintech should play a bigger role in China’s transition towards a low-carbon economy. We will see the rapid growth of fintech in supporting China’s definition of low-carbon transition standards, enabling carbon accounting and environmental information disclosure, empowering local green finance innovation, serving companies of the real economy, and helping financial institutions develop novel green products.”
“Fintech can effectively address the lack of green finance data and help with analytics and decision-making for investment and financing activities in green finance. Technology companies should further explore and innovate their products for different green finance scenarios to drive the rapid, high-quality development of green finance,” said Jialong Liu, Director, ESG Investment Research Center, Institute of Finance and Sustainability.
Gracie Sun, Senior Advisor of the Paulson Institute and Managing Director of Green Finance Center stated, “Fintech can help financial institutions achieve their environmental and climate targets while effectively improving the efficiency of their investment and financing decisions. In the future, fintech will see huge market potential and extensive adoption in the fields of biodiversity conservation, inclusive finance, green agriculture, and transition finance. The deep integration of fintech and green finance will accelerate China’s efforts in hitting the ‘dual-carbon’ targets.”
Learn more about the 2022 Fintech Facilitates the Sustainable Development of Green Finance in China: Cases and Outlook.
Paulson Institute
Founded in 2011 by former Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, Jr., the Paulson Institute is based in Chicago, with offices in Washington and Beijing. The Paulson Institute is a non-partisan, independent, privately funded “think and do tank” dedicated to fostering a US-China relationship that serves to maintain global order in a rapidly evolving world. The focus on US-China is dictated by the reality that it is the most consequential bilateral relationship in the world. We operate at the intersection of economics, financial markets, and environmental protection by promoting market-based solutions to ensure green economic growth.
Institute of Finance and Sustainability (IFS)
Institute of Finance and Sustainability is a think tank that provides policy, market, and product research and international cooperation platforms for Chinese and global green finance and sustainable development. As a non-profit organization, IFS’s goal is to become a think tank with global influence in green finance, natural capital financing, low carbon development, and energy transition and to make substantial contributions to improving the global environment and addressing climate change.
Media contact:
Tina Ren
Paulson Institute
tren@PaulsonInstitute.org