Hong Kong to host sustainable finance training event for Asian policymakers, regulators and finance professionals

“After many years of sustainable finance development, globally we see that the majority of the sizeable transactions are happening in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries (OECD) and China,” Ma told the Post.

“The rest of the emerging markets are lagging behind in terms of capacity, which has held back their development of sustainable finance.”

In response, the institute initiated the international cooperation platform CASI, which was launched last December at the United Nations global climate summit Cop28 in Dubai.

Standard Chartered says investors buying ESG funds surge by 40 per cent

CASI’s founding members include the institute, the HKMA’s Infrastructure Financing Facilitation Office, the Beijing-backed Silk Road Fund, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, finance education and professional standards body CFA Institute, besides HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank.

Other members include the Hong Kong Green Finance Association, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Trade Development Council, audit and consulting firms Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PwC.

Ma, who has had stints as an economist with Deutsche Bank, World Bank and the IMF, is president of the association and former co-chair of the G20 sustainable finance working group.

CASI, which plans a secretariat office in Hong Kong, will co-organise with the HKMA the in-person event in the city in June for participants from Asia, besides online courses and webinars for a wider audience, Ma said. CASI will draw on its members’ Hong Kong resources to provide training during the event.

A similar in-person event will be organised by CASI in Brazil in April, targeting the Latin America region, with another one scheduled to be launched in the Middle East and Africa region in the second half of the year, he added.

Covering topics including policymaking, regulation, sustainable finance instruments, carbon markets, greenhouse gas emissions accounting and sustainability disclosures verification, CASI plans to create 100 hours of learning content and intends to attract an audience of 100,000 people at its events by 2030, Ma said.

During the in-person sessions, participants will discuss how to apply sustainable finance principles and best practices adopted by developed markets, in their home countries, he noted.

“This involves a lot of South-South exchange,” he said, referring to emerging economies. “It is not just the advanced economies saying I have done this and you [can] copy my model. [Actually], you need to take into account a lot of local conditions and constraints.”

The CFA Institute, a 60 year-old investment education, research and standards setting body, is a key content generation and distribution partner of CASI.

“We were known as the gold standard for financial analysts, we are now known globally as the green standard for education in sustainability … what we want to do is to bring our expertise on training delivery,” said Paul Moody, managing director of global partnerships and client solutions at CFA Institute.

There are around 200,000 Chartered Financial Analyst charter holders in 160 markets globally, including more than 9,000 in Hong Kong.

Some 16,000 candidates in Hong Kong have registered for the CFA Institute certificate in its ESG investing programme since its launch in September 2021, around a third of the global total of about 48,000.

In late 2022, the city’s government launched a subsidy scheme for local sustainable finance training and professional qualifications acquisition.