Green Finance: Research and Practical Agendas in China and the World

On Wednesday morning 31st January, University College London (UCL) Institute for Sustainable Resources will be hosting a public seminar on “Green Finance: Research and Practical Agendas in China and the World”, to be delivered by Prof Yao Wang and Prof Yi-Chen Shi from the International Institute of Green Finance (IIGF) at China’s Central University of Finance and Economics (CUFE). Discussants include Prof Michael Grubb and Prof Raimund Bleischwitz from UCL.

Agenda:

10:00-10:10      Introduction
10:10-11:00      Presentation by Prof Yao Wang on general topics
11:00-11:30      Presentation by Prof Yi-Chen Shi on two specific researches
11:30-12:00      Panel Discussion and Q&A

Topic Introduction:

While many countries have made a commitment to ‘green growth’, it is estimated that trillions of dollars are required to invest in green economy sectors during the coming decades, to meet the long-term need of sustainable development. In 2016, the G20 chaired by China, included green finance in the G20 Summit for the first time as a financial solution to close the funding gaps, generating a consensus on jointly promoting the development of green finance. Since then, considerable progress has been made in different countries.

In China, a comprehensive policy framework has been unveiled for green finance since 2016, with seven ministries jointly releasing the Guidelines for Establishing the Green Financial System this year. As the first country in the world with clearly stated government policy support, China has also seen rapid development in both policy and market actions concerning green finance.

The first half of the presentation will be given by Prof Yao WANG, starting with a global picture of green finance development in the past two years, mainly focusing on international cooperation. As following, China’s progress in establishing a green financial system will be thoroughly reviewed, in various dimensions including policy tools, product innovation and market-enablers. While highlighting the success, the presentation will also map the challenges faced by the transformation to green financial system, and will further offer recommendations and outlooks correspondently for future development.

The second half of the presentation will be given by Prof Yi-Chen SHI, focusing on two specific researches in green finance: Environmental Stress Testing and Green Stock Index. The Environmental Stress Testing which applied to the asset management industry is a quantitative approach for the analysis and management of environmental and climate risk. The Green Stock Index research developed an innovative and comprehensive methodology to measure green level of listed companies.

About the speakers:

Professor Yao Wang (王遥) is the Director General of International Institute of Green Finance (IIGF) at China’s Central University of Finance and Economics (CUFE), the Deputy Secretary General of Green Finance Committee (GFC) of China Society for Finance and Banking, the Fellow of the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) and Advisory of the Sustainable Finance Programme at the University of Oxford Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment. She is also the Adjunct Professor of University of Southern Queensland, Australia, and University of Victoria, Australia, and an expert of Asian Development Bank. In 2010-2011, she was a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University. Professor Wang is interested in Low Carbon Economy, Climate Finance and Green Finance. She is the author of Carbon Finance: Global Vision and Distribution in China (China Economic Publishing House, 2010), and Climate Finance (China Economic Publishing House, 2013), and several other publications and working papers on climate finance and green finance. She had been working as a senior manager in Securities Companies (investment bank) for about 7 years, and have considerable underwriting experiences.

Professor Yi-Chen Shi (施懿宸) is a chair professor of International Institute of Green Finance (IIGF) at Central University of Finance and Economics (CUFE) and head of Green Finance Innovation Laboratory of International Institute of Green Finance. He has academic papers published in Financial Management, Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Asia-Pacific Journal of Financial Studies and Review of Pacific Basin Financial Markets and Policies. Besides, he ever studied in “Green stock index”, “ESG index” and “Environmental Stress Testing” for many years and owned many research outputs. He leads the research team of IIGF to develop a new methodology of stress testing and to finish “Research Report on Environmental Stress Testing of Asset Management Industry”. This is one of the top ten performances in 2017 Annual Meeting of Green Finance Committee (GFC) of the China Society for Finance and Banking. Besides, he also leads the research team to develop the innovation of Green Leading Stock Index and to finish the research report on “Green Leading Stock Index of CUFE”. This Index is launched at the 2017 Annual Meeting of China Environmental Protection Industry Association.

If you have any enquiries, please contact Dongyang Pan: d.pan.17@ucl.ac.uk