In recent years, ICBC has continued support the growth of the green economy as a key area and implemented the sustainable financing model by providing credit resources to projects related to the optimization and adjustment of economic structure, energy-conservation and emission-reduction. Statistics show that by the end of 2014, the outstanding loans granted by the Bank to green economic sectors (including ecological protection, clean energy, energy conservation and emission reduction and resources recycling) amounted to RMB 655.3 billion, up by 9.5% over the beginning of the year.

According to an ICBC official, the Bank has put in place a relatively sound long-term green credit development mechanism, and incorporated it to its corporate vision, development strategy, credit culture, policies and mechanism, management process, products and services among others. On credit policy, it has stipulated green credit policies covering 61 industries based on the government’s industry policies, environmental protection criteria and operating conditions of relevant industries, and set different economic capital adjustment coefficients to encourage and guide bank-wide credit resources to tilt towards sectors in connection with green economy and conservation of energy, such as ecological protection, clean energy, energy conservation and emission reduction and recycling economy. For each specific sector, ICBC has guided support to outstanding enterprises and projects with bank-wide resources by focusing on key indicators such as process, energy consumption, technology and environmental protection,, which has driven the green adjustment of its credit structure.

In credit operations, the Bank has directly linked the classification of green credit to the ratings of enterprises, which is included into the credit process to realize the one veto mechanism for green credit. In addition, it has actively supported well-performing enterprises to address overcapacity by means of mergers and reorganization, technology renovation, energy conservation and emission reduction, and “going global”, which has facilitated industrial restructuring, transformation and upgrading. In recent years, the number of its environment-friendly customers and the loan balance for such customers have both accounted for over 99.9% of all its corporate customers in mainland China and the total loan balance.

To fully support green growth, the Bank has also included ‘social contribution per share’ in the performance assessment indicators for its senior management, and incorporated the quantitative indicator of green credit implementation into the operating performance assessment system for its branches, thus improving the performance assessment and incentive mechanism for green credit work in a top-down manner. In November 2014, ICBC joined the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) as a member of the organization in a bid to further boost the development of green banking, and the balanced growth of green economy and environmental protection with financial levers.