Hong Kong Climate and Environmental Group Announces Collaboration With CDP

The Green and Sustainable Finance Cross-Agency Steering Group (Steering Group) in Hong Kong has entered into a collaboration arrangement with CDP, an international non-profit organisation that runs the global environmental disclosure system for companies, to jointly enhance climate data availability and sustainability reporting in Hong Kong.

Under the arrangement, Steering Group and CDP will work together to enhance climate and environmental disclosure, improve data availability and accessibility in Hong Kong and

support capacity building and upskilling, to facilitate local companies in disclosing high-quality climate and other environmental-related data in line with existing and upcoming global standards and best practice.

The deal will also facilitate data flow to provide financial institutions with better data resources to assess climate and environmental-related risks, and supporting the real sector in the transition towards carbon neutrality.

As part of this collaboration, the Steering Group and CDP have developed a Climate and Environmental Risk Questionnaire for Non-listed companies/SMEs.

This is a first cross-sector reporting template designed for first-time reporting corporates in Hong Kong, especially SMEs. The template comes in three versions with different level of granularity, to cater for variation in the reporting corporates’ size and sophistication.

The template is intended to aid corporates’ sustainability reporting processes and raise their sustainability visibility to lenders, investors and supply chain clients to better access sustainability financing. It will also facilitate financial institutions’ collection and assessment of company-level data for risk assessment and relevant business decisions.

To encourage take-up, the Steering Group and CDP have developed comprehensive guidance and learning materials for the use of the template, and will arrange targeted capacity-building sessions starting in 1Q 2023.

Eddie Yue, Co-Chair of the Steering Group, Chief Executive, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority said: “Data is a critical factor in promoting the adoption of sustainable finance by financial institutions and corporates. With the launch of this collaboration with CDP, we are taking in important step in broadening our data effort to include SMEs, an important and previously hard-to-reach segment of our economy. We look forward to working with CDP to encourage the use of this template and further enhance Hong Kong’s sustainable finance ecosystem.”

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