Hong Kong is looking to enhance its climate data availability and sustainability reporting through the partnership between the Green and Sustainable Finance Cross-Agency Steering Group and international non-profit CDP.

The Steering Group is co-chaired by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) and the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC).

Both entities will work together to facilitate data flow by providing financial institutions with better data resources to assess climate and environmental related risks and transition towards carbon neutrality.

They also aim to support capacity building and upskilling to facilitate local companies in disclosing high-quality climate and other environmental-related data.

As part of this collaboration, the Steering Group and CDP have developed a Climate and Environmental Risk Questionnaire for non-listed companies/small and medium-sized enterprises (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 levels of granularity to cater for variation in the reporting corporates’ size and sophistication.

It is intended to aid corporates’ sustainability reporting processes and raise their sustainability visibility to lenders, investors and supply chain clients so 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.

Eddie Yue, Co-Chair of the Steering Group and the Chief Executive, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority said,

“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.”

Julia Leung, Co-Chair of the Steering Group and Acting Chief Executive Officer, the Securities and Futures Commission said,

“Companies worldwide are increasingly setting climate goals and actively considering their respective decarbonisation pathways.

 

This collaboration with CDP will enhance the availability and accessibility of comparable and reliable value chain data, which will not only benefit companies that are seeking to understand their current climate footprints and chart the way forward, but also contribute positively to the global emissions reduction agenda.”