Taxonomy for sustainable finance

MACAU, China – The tourism industry in this city and special administrative region (SAR) on the southern Chinese coast has not recovered yet from the pandemic, which took a large toll on Macau’s economy. In the first half of 2023, the number of visitors here reached 11.6 million compared with 20.3 million during the same period in 2019.

According to Maria Helena Fernandes, head of the Macau Government Tourism Office, 96% of the tourists so far this year were from the Hong Kong and Mainland China markets. She disclosed that the number of foreign tourists from January to June 2023 was only one-fifth of the pre-pandemic total — mostly coming from the Philippines and Indonesia, which are also the main sources of Macau’s migrant worker communities.

In 2022, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) conditioned its economic outlook for Macau SAR on the former Portuguese territory’s high exposure to climate change. It may be recalled that in 2017, Typhoon Hato broke all historical records in terms of storm surge heights and flooding in Macau, which suffered an economic loss of $1.6 billion as a result.

The IMF has recommended the Macanese government’s scaling up of public investments in critical infrastructure and coastal management to help mitigate climate-related risks. Significantly, Macau is the most densely populated city in the world as of 2021 with a population density of 21,054 per square kilometer — three times higher than Singapore or Hong Kong.

Another way is to establish and implement credible frameworks such as taxonomies for sustainable finance, as advocated by Commissioner Kelvin Lester K. Lee of the Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), who is a board member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Taxonomy Board. The taxonomy for sustainable finance is a set of criteria that provide the basis for evaluating whether a financial asset will support the United Nations’ sustainable development goals (SDGs).

During a recent talk he gave at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, Mr. Lee explained that when it comes to sustainable finance as a baseline, taxonomies are urgently needed along with increased funding for investments in low-carbon projects like renewable energy, coal phaseouts, and green infrastructure. He referenced the ASEAN Taxonomy for Sustainable Finance as parameters that help the ASEAN countries identify and categorize sustainable projects and economic activities while assessing if they truly meet the SDGs, such as the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

At the Asian Leaders Sustainable Development Program held in Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government, Mr. Lee called on investors and governments to work together more closely to meet investment targets for sustainable projects that help fight climate change. He said there is no other way forward for societies, economies, and businesses except to make sure we have the infrastructure, policies, and technologies that mitigate the effect of climate change.

“Otherwise, we will all, literally, have no future. How can we survive if disasters like flooding, typhoons, droughts, and heat waves destroy our food supply, our homes, our cities, and our health? Such destruction can only be avoided by taking action now,” he warned.

Citing a 2017 report from the Asian Development Bank, Mr. Lee pointed out the need for Southeast Asia to invest $3.1 trillion up to 2030 to build infrastructure that can respond to climate change. He believes that more widespread utilization and implementation of the ASEAN Taxonomy will encourage funding and investments for credible climate change projects and technologies.

For the Philippines, the sustainable finance expert is involved in crafting a national taxonomy to define specific economic activities as green. He revealed that the government, business sector, and other stakeholders are working to deepen the capital markets, boost investor confidence, encourage market participation, and enhance financial inclusion to fast-track the development of green finance and sustainable infrastructure.

The opinion expressed herein does not necessarily ref l ect the views of these institutions and BusinessWorld.

J. Albert Gamboa is the chief finance officer of Asian Center for Legal Excellence and vice-chair of the FINEX Ethics Committee.

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