During the annual meeting of the International Institute of Green Finance (IIGF) held last Saturday, WWF Beijing Representative Office and the Bank of Beijing signed a memorandum of cooperation on the Pilot Project of Green Finance in the Commodity Supply Chain (the pilot project), the first such agreement related to afforestation in China.
At present, how to mobilize financial resources to the maximum extent to support conservation and environmental restoration has become an issue of increasing concern in the field of environmental protection and the global economy.
China is still in the early stages of financial institutions supporting and participating in practices related to biodiversity, especially forest-related commodity supply chains and finance.
Last year in Yunnan Province, 36 Chinese financial institutions, including the Bank of Beijing and 24 foreign banks, participated in the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 15), and jointly announced with the WWF and other international organizations support for biodiversity conservation.
After the signing of the agreement, WWF and the Bank of Beijing will work to jointly promote the implementation of the pilot project.
IIGF, as a witness to the agreement, will also use its research strengths to provide intellectual support for both parties, and contribute to innovation and sustainable development in this field.
Zhou Fei, deputy director-general of WWF Beijing Representative Office, said that the organization is committed to coordinating multi-party cooperation, researching and advocating all possibilities for the financial sector to empower the field of environmental protection.
“WWF not only advocates the formulation of green financial policies for Chinese state-owned banks, but also promotes the implementation and large-scale application of financial support for green agricultural practices,” Zhou said.
