The People's Bank of China and other four departments issued the Opinions on Giving Play to the Role of Green Finance to Serve the Construction of a Beautiful China
In order to implement the decision and deployment of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on comprehensively promoting the construction of a beautiful China, and help the construction of a beautiful China with high-quality development of green finance, the People's Bank of China, the Ministry of Ecological Environment, the State Administration of Financial Supervision, and the China Securities Regulatory Commission recently jointly issued the Opinions on Giving Play to the Role of Green Finance in Serving the Construction of a Beautiful China (hereinafter referred to as the Opinions), which put forward 19 key measures from four aspects of increasing support in key areas, improving the professional service capacity of green finance, enriching green financial products and services, and strengthening the implementation guarantee.  
The Opinion clearly states that we will focus on the actual needs of building a beautiful China, coordinate and plan a number of landmark major engineering projects, and increase financing support. In accordance with the requirements of collaborative promotion of carbon reduction, pollution reduction, green expansion, and growth, a Beautiful China construction project library will be built around key areas such as the construction of the Beautiful China pilot zone, green and low-carbon development of key industries, in-depth promotion of pollution prevention and control, and ecological protection and restoration, effectively enhancing the accuracy of financial support.  
The Opinion emphasizes the need to focus on enhancing the green finance service capabilities of financial institutions and enriching green finance products and services. Banks, insurance, securities, funds and other financial institutions should focus on their functional positioning, improve their internal management systems through improving work mechanisms, optimizing process management, promoting the application of financial technology, and strengthening team building, in order to enhance the quality of green finance supply. Continuously increasing green credit investment, developing green financial products such as green bonds and green asset securitization, and strengthening green financing support. Focus on key links and areas such as regional ecological and environmental protection projects, carbon markets, resource and environmental elements, ecological environment oriented development (EOD) projects, diversified climate investment and financing, green consumption, etc., and increase innovation efforts in green financial products.  
The Opinion proposes to strengthen implementation guarantees and leverage the collaborative efforts of various departments' policies. Establish a departmental coordination mechanism, improve the government bank enterprise docking platform and policy guarantee system. Improve supporting infrastructure systems, promote the establishment of a unified green finance standard system, and improve carbon accounting standards and methods. Optimize incentive and constraint mechanisms, and evaluate the implementation of green finance policies. Establish a sound risk prevention and control mechanism, and strengthen monitoring and analysis of project financing in key areas.  
In the next step, the People's Bank of China and other departments will continue to improve the supporting basic system of green financial services for beautiful China, guide financial institutions to implement the requirements of the Opinions, continue to do a good job in green finance, and fully support the construction of beautiful China.  
Attachment:
Opinions of the People's Bank of China, the Ministry of Ecological Environment, the General Administration of Financial Supervision and the CSRC on giving play to the role of green finance to serve the construction of a beautiful China
Developing green finance is an important measure to support the construction of a beautiful China. In order to implement the decision and deployment of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on comprehensively promoting the construction of a beautiful China, and accelerate the modernization of harmonious coexistence between man and nature, the following opinions are proposed on leveraging the role of green finance to serve the construction of a beautiful China.  
1、 Overall requirements
  To support the construction of a beautiful China through high-quality development of green finance.  
2、 Increase support for key areas
（1） Support the construction of the Beautiful China Pilot Zone. Guide financial institutions to serve major regional development strategies such as the Beijing Tianjin Hebei region, the Yangtze River Economic Belt, the Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area, the Yangtze River Delta region, and the Yellow River Basin. Intensify financial support for the construction of beautiful provinces. Encourage localities to explore investment and financing models for the construction of beautiful cities, and systematically plan and coordinate the implementation of beautiful city project construction. Coordinate and support the revitalization of rural ecology and the improvement of rural living environment, and assist in the construction of beautiful countryside. Support the creation of demonstration projects for beautiful rivers, lakes, and bays, and promote the integrated development of green and low-carbon industries such as beautiful rivers, lakes, bays, and ecotourism. In accordance with the requirements of collaborative promotion of carbon reduction, pollution reduction, green expansion, and growth, we will coordinate and plan financial support for the construction of a beautiful China, develop a guidance catalog, build a project library, effectively connect with current green finance standards, ecological and environmental protection financial support project reserve libraries, etc.  
（2） Support green and low-carbon development. Intensify support for clean energy, with a focus on supporting winter clean heating, long-distance heating demonstration projects, charging and swapping infrastructure construction, and the development of zero emission freight fleets in northern regions. Support collaborative innovation pilot projects for pollution reduction and carbon reduction in cities and industrial parks, and implement key industries such as electricity, steel, non-ferrous metals, and building materials for pollution reduction and carbon reduction transformation, environmental protection equipment updates, and process optimization projects. Support the comprehensive utilization of emerging solid waste (new energy vehicle waste power batteries, retired and scrapped photovoltaic modules, wind turbine blades, etc.), expand the market-oriented scenarios of secondary utilization, and support the construction of regional recycling bases. We strongly support the research, demonstration, and promotion of greenhouse gas emission control technologies, new energy technologies, carbon capture, utilization, and storage technologies, technologies related to the coordinated reduction of greenhouse gases and pollutants, green and low-carbon alternatives and alternative technologies for ozone depleting substances and hydrofluorocarbons. Develop third-party governance models, guide financial support for regional and watershed environmental governance solutions, and provide comprehensive ecological and environmental services such as environmental stewardship.  
（3） Support the deepening of pollution prevention and control efforts. Intensify support for comprehensive management of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), ultra-low emission transformation of key industries, and improvement of environmental performance levels for industrial enterprises. Support the control of odor pollution and transportation noise pollution in key industries. Further increase support for the construction and upgrading of sewage collection and treatment facilities in industrial parks, urban new areas, towns, and rural areas, promote the construction of pipeline networks along key rivers and lakes, and encourage large and medium-sized cities with conditions to moderately advance the layout of centralized sludge treatment and disposal facilities. Taking the construction of a "zero waste city" as a starting point, promote the harmless treatment and comprehensive utilization of regional solid waste. Support the construction of facilities for the classification, treatment, and disposal of household waste, and promote the construction of regional hazardous waste environmental risk prevention and control technology centers and special hazardous waste centralized disposal centers. Support key soil pollution monitoring units to implement soil pollution source prevention and control projects. Intensify support for chemical environmental management and new pollutant control.  
（4） Support ecological protection and restoration. Actively support the integrated protection and restoration projects of mountains, waters, forests, fields, lakes, grasses, and sands, as well as major projects for the protection and restoration of important ecosystems, and carry out ecological status assessment and ecological quality monitoring. Support the protection of wildlife and their habitats, and implement major projects for biodiversity conservation. Support the protection and restoration of marine ecology, as well as the sustainable development of industries such as marine new energy and ecotourism. Support the pollution control and ecological restoration of historical legacy mines in the Yangtze River Basin and Yellow River Basin, encourage the use of market-oriented means to activate natural resources in mining areas, and carry out collaborative pilot demonstrations of pollution control and ecological restoration in mining areas. Encourage local governments to promote the transformation of ecological product value, advance the realization of ecological product value through financial services, and establish cross regional ecological protection compensation mechanisms.  
3、 Enhance the professional service capability of green finance
（1） Promote financial institutions to optimize green financial services based on their functional positioning. Policy oriented development oriented financial institutions should highlight their functional attributes, combine their main responsibilities and businesses, and make full use of the financing support role of policy oriented development oriented finance for the construction of major projects in Beautiful China. State owned large banks should play a leading and main role, improve the mechanism of green finance work, and continuously enhance the efficiency of financing docking for the construction of a beautiful China. Joint stock commercial banks should cultivate advantages and strengths based on their own endowments, and make green financial service brands better and stronger. Small and medium-sized banks should carry out characteristic operations based on local conditions, focus on specific fields and key industries, and improve the quality of green finance services. Insurance institutions should improve their green insurance service system, establish a green insurance service network, promote product innovation, increase service supply, and provide a comprehensive risk reduction and loss protection insurance plan. Securities and fund institutions should follow the concept of green investment, cultivate long-term value investment orientation, and establish norms for green investment behavior.  
（2） Establish a sound internal management system for financial institutions. Improve the working mechanism, encourage financial institutions to optimize credit management in the field of green and low-carbon transformation, explore the establishment of ecological credit behavior incentive mechanisms, and take the performance of enterprises in reducing carbon emissions, pollution, and expanding green as important reference factors for loan approval, quota calculation, and interest rate pricing. Optimize process management, encourage the inclusion of climate and biodiversity related financial risks in the entire business approval process management, optimize green finance business approval management, and improve the efficiency of green project approval. Promote the application of financial technology, explore the construction of green financial service platforms, deepen data sharing, empower carbon accounting, sustainable information disclosure, green identification, project evaluation, risk management through big data, artificial intelligence, etc., and enhance the ability and efficiency of green financial services. Strengthen institutional settings and team building, encourage the establishment of green finance professional departments or characteristic branches, introduce special incentive systems, allocate special resources, form professional teams, set up dedicated positions, and build a professional talent team.  
（3） Strengthen green financing support. Intensify credit support, encourage financial institutions to actively connect with the financing needs of key projects in the construction of a beautiful China, deeply explore the value of environmental rights and interests, and reasonably determine asset appraisal value and collateral ratio. Vigorously develop green bonds, support eligible enterprises to issue green bonds and transition bonds, support pilot issuance of theme bonds for the construction of beautiful rivers, lakes, and bays, and raise funds to increase investment in beautiful China construction projects. Encourage financial institutions to issue and invest in green bonds. Support credit rating agencies to fully utilize environmental information disclosed by enterprises in accordance with the law to provide rating services for green bond issuance. Support the issuance of green asset securitization products, activate existing assets, and improve asset liquidity. Actively leverage the role of government investment funds and guide social capital to invest in the construction of a beautiful China. Support the compliant issuance of real estate investment trust fund products for environmental infrastructure projects that meet clean energy and other conditions.  
（4） Promote the coordinated development of green finance, technology finance, and digital finance. Encourage financial institutions to explore a business model that combines equity and debt, under the premise of legal compliance and controllable risks, to provide financial services for major initiatives in ecological environment technology innovation, major scientific facilities and key laboratories, engineering technology centers, etc. Guide financial institutions to support basic research and key core technology breakthroughs in key areas such as pollution reduction and carbon reduction, climate change response, biodiversity conservation, new pollutant control, and ecological environment security, and promote the self-reliance and self-improvement of green and low-carbon technology. Support the construction of intelligent platforms for ecological environment monitoring and supervision, the construction and upgrading of monitoring networks, the research and application of automatic monitoring equipment and digital monitoring equipment, strengthen the comprehensive development and utilization of data resources, and empower the construction of a beautiful China. Encourage local governments to comprehensively utilize various preferential policies such as interest subsidies, allowances, and rewards, guide financial institutions to support the integration of industrial digitization and green development, and help develop new quality productivity.  
4、 Enrich green financial products and services
（1） Explore financial support models for regional ecological and environmental protection projects. Clarify the scope and standards of regional ecological and environmental protection projects, accurately grasp the characteristics of project funding requirements, highlight the goals and tasks related to service support for major regional strategies and regional coordinated development strategies, and support major engineering construction in the field of ecological environment. Encourage financial institutions to actively serve the construction of regional ecological and environmental protection projects, leverage the advantages of financial expertise, and provide comprehensive, full lifecycle financial services such as financial advisory, loan credit, investment banking, payment settlement, etc.  
（2） Utilize the role of the carbon market. While steadily expanding the industry coverage of the national carbon emission trading market, gradually enriching trading varieties, trading entities, and trading methods, we will fully utilize the existing financial market infrastructure system in the market, integrate and optimize institutional arrangements for carbon market trading, clearing and settlement, study and improve technical specifications related to carbon market access, trading, and services, and steadily promote the participation of financial institutions in the construction of the national carbon market. Accelerate the formation of a market-oriented price discovery and formation mechanism that fully reflects the value, scarcity, supply and demand relationship, and profit and cost of factors, and promote carbon reduction in key emission units and industry enterprises.  
（3） Safely develop financing products and services for resource and environmental factors. Guide financial institutions to develop financial products and services related to resource and environmental factors, such as green credit, green insurance, green bonds, green asset-backed securities, etc., under the premise of legal compliance, controllable risks, and commercial sustainability. Support financial institutions to explore using resource and environmental factors as qualified collateral, and encourage the exploration of using resource and environmental factors as collateral for loans. Improve the guarantee system of carbon emission rights and national certified voluntary emission reduction (CCER), strengthen the business cooperation between registration agencies and the unified registration and publicity system of movable property financing of the People's Bank of China Credit Reference Center, share relevant information in real time, and do a good job in carbon emission rights and CCER guarantee registration, publicity, labeling, freezing, etc. Explore services such as resource and environmental element repurchase, factoring, and custody to support the comprehensive utilization of environmental assets. Explore ways and means to promote financial support for forestry carbon sink and ocean carbon sink projects, and improve related supporting services. Encourage financial institutions to enrich their financial products and services based on carbon footprint information.  
（4） Strengthen financial support for Ecological Environment Oriented Development (EOD) projects. Increase credit support for EOD projects, optimize project loan conditions, and improve project financing efficiency. Encourage financial institutions to grant overall credit to EOD projects that integrate ecological environment governance content and related industries in accordance with market-oriented and rule of law principles. Expand investment and financing channels for EOD projects, explore using EOD project related assets, equity, etc. as collateral for project loans, and encourage green equity investment funds to participate in green project investments. Establish and improve the risk prevention and supervision mechanism for EOD projects, strengthen the evaluation and review of EOD project model compliance, project goal achievement, implementation benefits, etc.  
（5） Expand diversified climate investment and financing services. Support the pilot construction of climate investment and financing, cultivate key projects with significant climate benefits, explore diversified climate investment and financing tools and service systems, and encourage financial institutions to strengthen funding support and financial services. Support the issuance of climate themed green bonds and expand direct financing channels. Give full play to the role of venture capital funds, private equity investment funds, trust funds, etc., and guide more social capital to invest in key areas such as addressing climate change.  
（6） Develop green consumer finance business. Support the practice of green and low-carbon lifestyles, explore the establishment of personal carbon accounts, and promote innovation in the "carbon inclusive" system. Actively carry out green consumption credit business, encourage financial institutions to expand the application scenarios of green consumption loans around daily behaviors such as "clothing, food, housing, transportation", develop personal carbon finance products and services, incorporate personal green low-carbon behavior carbon reduction information, form convertible carbon credits, and provide preferential credit limits, interest rates, and value-added services.  
5、 Strengthen implementation guarantee
（1） Establish a departmental coordination mechanism. The People's Bank of China, the Ministry of Ecological Environment, the State Administration of Financial Supervision and the CSRC have established a mechanism for information sharing and work coordination. Focusing on the construction of a pilot area in beautiful China, the Ministry of Ecological Environment and the People's Bank of China have studied and planned a number of landmark major engineering projects around the construction of sewage treatment facilities and pipe networks, solid waste pollution control, ecological protection and control of mines left over by history, third-party governance of environmental pollution, green and low-carbon development of key industries, and the comprehensive utilization of emerging solid waste such as new energy automobile waste power batteries, retired and scrapped photovoltaic modules, wind turbine blades, etc., forming a list to push to financial institutions. Ecological environment departments at all levels and branches of the People's Bank of China improved the working mechanism and policy guarantee system for government bank enterprise docking, built a bank enterprise docking platform, timely summarized advanced practices, submitted excellent cases, and fed back difficult problems.  
（2） Give full play to policy synergy. Deepen the reform of the legal disclosure system for environmental information, effectively connect the requirements for legal disclosure of environmental information by enterprises and financial institutions, and improve the efficiency and quality of information disclosure. Accelerate the construction of an environmental credit supervision system, establish an environmental credit evaluation information platform, incorporate enterprise environmental credit information into the financial credit information basic database and various small and medium-sized enterprise credit information platforms, and support financial institutions to link financing project credit evaluation with environmental credit evaluation. Enrich and improve structural monetary policy tools such as carbon reduction support tools. Encourage green finance reform and innovation pilot zones to introduce green finance support policies tailored to local conditions.  
（3） Improve the supporting basic system. Promote the establishment of a unified green finance and transitional finance standard system, optimize and improve green credit and green bond standards, improve green insurance standards, and strengthen statistical monitoring. Establish and improve standards and methods for carbon emission accounting, project carbon reduction accounting, and product carbon footprint accounting for key industry enterprises. The People's Bank of China has strengthened cooperation with the Ministry of Ecological Environment to promote the work related to green financial standards and improve the systematicness, consistency, authority and enforceability of green financial standards. Accelerate the improvement of green finance infrastructure. Establish and improve the registration and trading system for resource and environmental factors such as pollution discharge rights and water rights, and actively guide financial institutions to use the unified registration and publicity system for movable property financing to carry out environmental rights guarantee registration.  
（4） Optimize incentive and constraint mechanisms. Establish a sound assessment and evaluation system for green finance in financial institutions, evaluate the implementation of green finance policies, enrich the application scenarios of evaluation results, and guide financial institutions to increase their support for the green sector. Promote financial institutions and business entities to explore environmental, social, and governance (ESG) evaluations. Encourage enterprises to develop transformation plans, and provide incentives and praise to enterprises that have made clear commitments to green and low-carbon transformation and have achieved good transformation results.  
（5） Establish a sound risk prevention and control mechanism. The ecological environment department, in conjunction with daily supervision, reports to the financial management department on the environmental protection situation of enterprises and the environmental benefits of key projects, actively coordinates and strengthens the sustainability of financial support, and cooperates with the financial management department to do a good job in financial risk prevention and control. The financial management department guides financial institutions to provide financial services in accordance with the principles of marketization and rule of law, strengthen monitoring and analysis of project financing in key areas, improve credit management, strictly manage fund investment, ensure that credit funds support key project construction in accordance with laws and regulations, and safeguard the bottom line of preventing systemic financial risks.  
People's Bank of China
Ministry of Ecology and Environment
State Administration for Financial Regulation
China Securities Regulatory Commission
October 12th, 2024