Deep Dive

23 Mar INSIGHTS | SVB falls and Credit Suisse in Crisis. Lessons learned through an ESG lens.

Posted at 13:04 by Alexander Olding

The latest series of events in the banking sector have added to market volatility and uncertainty this past week. The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), followed by the fallout of Credit Suisse [CSGN:SW] has seen the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) Volatility Index (VIX)...

20 Mar INSIGHTS | “The Race Is On”: Europe’s Net-Zero Industry Act Proposal

Posted at 20:45 by Alexander Olding

The European Commission’s announcement to ramp up clean tech industrial capacity and secure a sustainable raw materials value chain is a bold step towards achieving net-zero emissions. Building on the original European Green Deal, the ambitious Green Deal Industrial Plan presented on February 1st, includes...

22 Feb INSIGHTS | Carbon Footprint Management for Logistics Firms: Challenges and Strategies

Posted at 17:10 by Tina Zhang

The logistics industry is essential for modern society, as it is responsible for the movement of goods across the globe. However, this industry is also one of the major sources of greenhouse gas emissions, which contribute significantly to climate change. According to the International Energy...

01 Feb INSIGHTS | Nature Risk Profile: Analyzing Impacts & Dependencies on Nature

Posted at 23:01 by Tina Zhang

Nature Risk Profile was launched by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and S&P Global on January 17. The Profile is a methodology with an aim at allowing the financial sector to measure and address nature-related risks. The launch of the Nature Risk Profile follows the...

08 Dec INSIGHTS | Get Ready for EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD)

Posted at 15:07 by Tina Zhang

The Council of the European Union (EU) formally passed the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) on November 28, following recent approval by the European Parliament in early November. The Directive is expected to be published in the Official Journal of the EU in the first...

17 Nov INSIGHTS | Carbon Offsets for Net-Zero: How to Do It Right?

Posted at 16:30 by Helena Zhu

Carbon offsets are essentially investments in greenhouse gas-reducing projects. When individuals and organizations purchase carbon offsets, funds in these transactions are funneled towards environmental and social projects with decarbonization benefits, such as the conservation of natural habitats, reforestation, and clean cooking fuels for rural communities....

03 Nov INSIGHTS | How Companies May Avoid Unintentional “Greenwashing”

Posted at 17:02 by Haiyan Luo

Anxiety over proper ESG information disclosure is rising among companies. What information must be disclosed? Should companies tell the truth when they realize that they are not doing well? Should ESG issues be stated again when corrections and rectifications have been implemented? These problems have...

13 Oct INSIGHTS | Next Low-carbon Generation for Transportation Sector

Posted at 16:53 by Tina Zhang

The transportation sector, one of the main contributors to global carbon emissions, produces a quarter of the global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Due to the various sub-industries under this sector, the report will mainly focus on the lifecycle of light-duty vehicles and explore low-carbon transition...

22 Sep INSIGHTS | Best of Both Worlds: ESG in Private Equity

Posted at 16:30 by Helena Zhu

Environmental, social, and governance have now become widely practiced by the top investment firms worldwide, influencing billions of dollars in investment decisions and pushing companies to meet investors’ demand for more sustainable and equitable practices. However, the private equity market still sees relatively little action...

11 Aug INSIGHTS | Internal Carbon Price: an Innovative Strategy for Sustainable Growth

Posted at 14:38 by Helena Zhu

An internal carbon price is an instrument used by entities such as companies and financial institutions to incentivize climate action by assigning monetary value to carbon emissions. The financial cost of carbon emissions is often invisible yet substantial. Nations are beginning to factor the social...

04 Aug INSIGHTS | China Green Bond Principles: Unified Criteria for the Domestic Market

Posted at 16:50 by Tina Zhang

The China Green Bond Principles (the Principles) is a framework for Chinese green bond issuers to follow best practices in the domestic market. Since 2015, China’s green bond market has expanded rapidly. In 1H22 alone, China issued RMB400.6bn (USD59.4bn) of green bonds and green asset-backed...

21 Jul INSIGHTS | ESG Disclosure for Taiwan-listed Companies

Posted at 15:13 by Helena Zhu

Environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) issues are undeniably becoming key components of disclosure for corporates and financial institutes around the world. In Asia, a flurry of ESG-related disclosure rules has hit the market in recent years, driving companies to issue sustainability reports and communicate...

14 Jul INSIGHTS | China’s Green Electricity Market and Certificates, Explained

Posted at 17:22 by Tina Zhang

On May 23, the Beijing Power Exchange Center published new rules for green power trading, in line with the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC)’s policy on green electricity trading pilots in August 2021. As China is still exploring effective approaches to upgrade its energy...

30 Jun INSIGHTS | Crackdown on Greenwashing by Regulators Has Begun

Posted at 17:07 by Haiyan Luo

The global rise of ESG investments in recent years has brought increasing greenwashing behaviors from investment product providers. Greenwashing is known as a cheating practice in which companies exaggerate their environmentally friendly approaches to gain more benefits. The phenomenon becomes more and more common as...

16 Jun INSIGHTS | Transition Finance: Funding the Green Transformation

Posted at 15:04 by Helena Zhu

Green finance has gained strong momentum in recent years, with cumulative green bond issuance snowballing to USD1.83tr as of June 2022, and ESG- and sustainability-themed financing increasingly available. Yet, a successful and effective economic transition from business-as-usual to sustainable requires investments in undertakings such as...