Bill Winters, Group Chief Executive of Standard Chartered and one of climate finance’s greatest advocates, visited Hong Kong recently and during his time here, was invited to participate in a webinar “Fireside Chat with Bill Winters on Banking’s Pathway to Net Zero and the Role of Voluntary Carbon Markets” organised by the Alliance for Green Commercial Banks, which was co-launched by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA). During the webinar, Bill shared his insights on the role of banks in the net zero transition journey and the role of voluntary carbon markets.
Our founder Ben McQuhae was invited to speak with Bill at the Fireside Chat on the role that Hong Kong can play in facilitating the growth of voluntary carbon markets in the Asia region.
One of the key takeaways from the discussion:
“Very specifically, I think Hong Kong can and should be the centre for the voluntary carbon market trading for the region, certainly China, and greater China and why not beyond… Hong Kong has a fabulous underlying infrastructure and history as a financial centre that has been critical for helping China access capital from the rest of the world, helping the rest of the world access markets in China, doing so with a wonderful infrastructure, with a legal framework, with HKEX as an outstanding and absolute leading global exchange. Hong Kong has tremendous advantages as a financial centre that can serve this market, and you might have China as an anchor for these activities, but the market if we’re all successful, will be global, and credits will be fungible globally, and the same way that you see international investors accessing the Hong Kong market to access Chinese and other shares, you’ll find international buyers of credits and suppliers of credits coming into the Chinese/Hong Kong market if we’re successful in setting it up the right way.” – Bill Winters
