It is believed that green bonds will become the mainstream of sustainable development in the future. At the time when the first green bond was issued in 2007, there weren’t any standardized criteria in the market. But then in 2014, International Capital Market Association (ICMA) and Climate Bond Initiative (CBI) established green bond principles respectively, which helped make the green bond market grow sustainably.

In Hong Kong, green finance products were only certified by the Hong Kong Quality Assurance Agency’s Green Finance Certification Scheme in the past. But now reports prepared by CBI’s approved verifiers are also accepted by Hong Kong Monetary Authority. This helps drive the development of green bonds locally.

Learn more from the full article (in Chinese only) written by Kenny Siu, Senior Advisor of AEC Group, published on Sing Pao on 9 August.