[2024-March-28]WG2 Webinar :Unlocking Finance in Sustainable Infrastructure: Leveraging Opportunities by Enhancing Disclosure

On March 28, 2024, the GIP Working Group on Sustainability Information Disclosure (WG2) hosted a seminar titled “Unlocking Finance in Sustainable Infrastructure: Leveraging Opportunities by Enhancing Disclosure.” The event focused on project-level disclosure practices, bringing together experts from financial institutions, project owners, professional service firms, academia, and international initiatives.

In the opening remarks, Huifeng ZHANG, Managing Director of Corporate Sustainability at HSBC Asia Pacific, emphasized the critical need for collaboration between public and private organizations to scale finance for sustainable infrastructure. ZHANG also introduced the FAST-Infra Label initiative as a potential tool to scale up such investments. Effie XIN, Managing Partner of Financial Services at EY Greater China, welcomed attendees to the seminar and highlighted EY's efforts in providing ESG reporting solutions.

Keynote Speeches

Tim WARLOW, Director of Sustainable Infrastructure and Innovation at HSBC Group Sustainability, discussed the FAST-Infra Label initiative. For financial institutions, project owners, and governments, the label plays a crucial role in improving transparency, reducing greenwashing risks, and enhancing investor confidence. By transforming sustainable infrastructure into a mainstream asset class and providing a standardized framework for assessing and verifying sustainability credentials, FAST-Infra could scale up infrastructure investment and address the challenge of insufficient standardized data.

Judy LI, Partner in Climate Change and Sustainability Services, Financial Services, EY Greater China, presented the latest update on China’s sustainabilty reporting framework. The Sustainability Reporting Guidelines (Trial), released by China’s three major stock exchanges in February 2024, align with international standards while incorporating Chinese characteristics. For example, the guidelines adopt the ISSB/TCFD four-pillar framework and mandate double materiality analysis, while also responding to national strategies such as rural revitalization.

QIAN Chengchen, Senior Project Manager at Global Infrastructure Basel Foundation (GIB) and Secretariat for FAST-Infra Label, explained the mechanism of the Fast Infra Label. The label uses over 25 existing standards and includes 400 indicators across environmental, social, governance, and resilience dimensions. The process involves both self-assessment and third-party verification; completing only the self-assessment results in a provisional label. The first group of self-assessed projects includes renewable energy initiatives in the Philippines, Vietnam, and India.

Case Sharing

The case-sharing session featured insights from three speakers:

● Sutanu PATI, Renewable Energy Consultant for Mumbai EV, highlighted the benefits of the FAST-Infra Label for his electric bus project in Mumbai, which utilizes solar panels to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. He noted that obtaining the provisional label helped demonstrate the project’s compliance with sustainability standards, facilitating access to international financing.

● Ben RIDLEY, Partner of M&A and Sustainable Finance at ERM, discussed the importance of data credibility in sustainable finance and shared case studies on high-speed electric rail and offshore wind projects in Greater China. He shared the way ERM collects and verifies environmental and social data to meet both Chinese regulatory and international lender standards. RIDLEY highlighted the need for baseline studies, impact assessments, and ongoing monitoring to ensure data accuracy. He pointed out the challenges of managing excessive data reporting and the benefits of standardized metrics to streamline disclosures.

Tabitha HUI, Associate Director of Sustainability Services at CGS International, discussed sustainability practices in the data center industry. She highlighted the rapid growth of the sector, and its significant energy and water consumption. Tabitha explained three key metrics used in data center sustainability reporting, including Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE), Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE), and Carbon Usage Effectiveness (CUE). She noted the ongoing shift in emissions reporting, with customer electricity use potentially moving to Scope 3 for data centers, which would enable customers to take ownership and responsibility.