On July 11, 2023, the China Climate Engagement Initiative (CCEI) was officially launched at the China Sustainable Investment Forum (China SIF) Summer Summit in Beijing, with 24 institutional investors as founding members, representing more than CNY 40 trillion of asset under management. The CCEI aims to assist institutional investors in playing a more active role in promoting the green and low-carbon transition of China's portfolio companies.
Under the "dual-carbon" goals, the green and low-carbon development of China's economy will require the capital market to provide substantial funds to decarbonise and enhance its resilience. As the backbone of China's capital market, institutional investors are uniquely positioned to shape and transform corporate behaviours and promote the high-quality transition of the real economy.
In recent years, Chinese regulators have been continuously encouraging financial institutions to promote and strengthen corporate ESG performance and achieve high-quality transition. The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) encourages institutional investors to actively engage in the governance of listed companies to take ESG information as an important part of investor relationship management. The former China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (formerly the CBIRC, now the National Administration of Financial Regulation) proposes in the "Guidelines on Green Finance for the Banking and Insurance Sectors" that banks and insurance companies should strengthen their post-lending and post-investment engagement; the Insurance Asset Management Association of China (IAMAC) issued the "Initiative on ESG Engagement and Stewardship for Insurance Asset Management in China", calling on insurance asset managers to exert the influence of institutional investors and guide stakeholders, including investee companies, to work together to build a green development ecosystem and help realise the "dual-carbon" goals.
In this context, the Institute of Finance and Sustainability (IFS) and China SIF have launched the China Climate Engagement Initiative (CCEI), together with partners. The CCEI is China's first collaborative investor initiative to promote green, low-carbon and high-quality corporate transition by facilitating institutional investor engagement and stewardship management.
The CCEI will bring together leading institutional investors in the field of sustainable investment and climate action who wish to contribute to the decarbonisation process in China to participate and act in the CCEI, form working groups and select key engaging companies to work together to achieve this vision through three pillars of work and dialogue with those selxcted key companies:
Pillar 1: Supporting and Monitoring the Development and Implementation of Transition Programmes. Identify key transition issues for key companies; assist key companies in developing transition programmes and plans on key transition issues; set clear, realistic and measurable transition targets and milestones for key companies; continuously track the transition progress of key companies until the transition targets are achieved.
Pillar 2: Research and Development of Investor Engagement Methodologies. Jointly develop methodologies and guidelines for institutional investor engagement to facilitate the transition of Chinese companies.
Pillar 3: Capacity Building. Organise capacity-building activities with institutional investors, experts and academics, key companies and stakeholders on key transition topics.
Wang Zhongmin, former Vice Chairman of the National Council of Social Security Funds and Honorary Chairman of the China SIF will be the Council Chair of the CCEI. Dr. Ma Jun, President of the Institute of Finance and Sustainability and Chairman of the Green Finance Committee of the China Society for Finance and Banking will be the Director of the Expert Committee of the CCEI and Dr. Guo Peiyuan, Chairman of China SIF and SynTao Green Finance will be the Deputy Director of the Expert Committee of the CCEI. The CCEI will be led by the Council and under the technical guidance provided by the Expert Committee. Its members and working groups will be organised by the Secretariat to implement the work.
The founding members of the CCEI include 24 institutional investors, covering local mutual funds, insurance asset managers, bank wealth managers, private funds and international asset managers. As of the launch date, the asset under management represented by the founding members of the CCEI exceeds CNY 40 trillion. Institutional investors will work together on the Three Pillars of Work by forming working groups on a voluntary basis. The CCEI is continuously recruiting more members of institutional investors and members of the expert committee, and we sincerely welcome institutional investors, experts and scholars to join the CCEI and work together to promote China's economy in its green and high-quality development journey.
For further information on the CCEI, please contact
Mr. Ji Pengbo at
jipengbo@syntaogf.com
