Green credit has a wide range of meanings, covering policy formulation, institutional arrangement and financial practice. Microscopically, green credit means that banks adopt certain environmental standards to carry out credit business. From a macro point of view, green credit is also an important part of the national macro-control policy and a credit policy to guide credit investment. Green credit has the transmission function of environmental protection policy and industrial policy. Through green credit, banks can curb the funds of polluting enterprises, support environmental protection enterprises, urge lending enterprises to assume environmental protection responsibilities, and achieve policy objectives such as energy conservation and emission reduction, optimizing industrial structure, and transforming economic growth mode.
The main contents of green credit policy include: first, by constantly updating the green industry guidance catalogue, establishing a green credit standard system and defining the scope of green credit; Second, cooperate with the implementation of environmental protection industrial policies, urge financial institutions to optimize the credit structure and prevent credit risks brought about by the implementation of environmental protection policies; The third is to establish a green financial performance evaluation system; Fourth, gradually enrich the restraint and incentive mechanism of green credit.
The attribute of green credit
From different angles, green credit has the attributes of bank corporate social responsibility and credit policy.
Green credit is first and foremost the corporate social responsibility of banks. Green credit requires banks not only to pay attention to the economic benefits of loans, but also to the impact of lenders' loan purposes and loan uses on the environment. The implementation of green credit by banks goes beyond the scope of profit-making, is a response to the needs of social and economic development, and is an integral part of corporate social responsibility of banks.
Green credit is still a credit policy. There are many levels of credit policy. In order to enhance their social responsibility image, or to prevent the credit loss caused by corporate environmental risk transmission, banks voluntarily incorporate green standards into their credit business, which is reflected in the internal credit policies of commercial banks. The formulation and implementation of internal green credit policy by banks is actually to fulfill corporate social responsibility. At the national and government levels, green credit is a macroeconomic policy. The central bank defines credit policy as "an important part of macroeconomic policy, which is an important means for the People's Bank of China to guide, regulate and supervise the total amount and investment of financial institutions according to the requirements of national macro-control and industrial policies, so as to continuously optimize the investment of credit, realize the optimal allocation of credit funds and promote economic restructuring". Green credit policy is a means to promote the development of environmental protection by adjusting the credit structure and giving play to the financial intermediary role of financial institutions such as commercial banks.
Relevant provisions of green credit
Green credit is a brand-new credit policy "Opinions on Implementing Environmental Protection Policies and Regulations to Prevent Credit Risks" (hereinafter referred to as "Opinions") jointly put forward by the State Environmental Protection Administration, the People's Bank of China and the China Banking Regulatory Commission on July 30th, 2007 to curb the blind expansion of industries with high energy consumption and high pollution.
The "Opinions" stipulate that for credit control of enterprises and projects that do not conform to industrial policies and environmental violations, commercial banks should take the environmental protection and law-abiding situation of enterprises as one of the necessary conditions for approving loans.
The "Opinions" stipulate that environmental protection departments at all levels should investigate and deal with illegal projects that have not been approved for pre-construction or leapfrog approval, environmental protection facilities have not been completed at the same time as the main project, and have been put into operation without environmental protection acceptance, and should promptly investigate and deal with the situation publicly. That is, it is necessary to inform financial institutions of the environmental information of enterprises.
Financial institutions should strictly examine and approve, issue, supervise and manage loans according to the environmental protection notice. Financial institutions shall not increase any form of credit support for new projects that have not passed the EIA approval or the acceptance of environmental protection facilities.
At the same time, the Opinions also designed more detailed provisions on loan types. If environmental protection departments at all levels investigate and deal with projects that exceed the standard, fail to obtain pollution discharge permits or fail to complete the task of governance within a time limit, financial institutions should strictly control loans when reviewing the application for working capital loans of their affiliated enterprises.
From the national level, it mainly includes: Opinions on Implementing Environmental Protection Policies and Regulations to Prevent Credit Risks issued by the State Environmental Protection Administration, the Central Bank and the China Banking Regulatory Commission in 2007, mainly to strengthen the coordination between environmental protection and credit management; In 2007, the China Banking Regulatory Commission issued the Guiding Opinions on Credit Work for Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction, aiming at cooperating with the smooth implementation of the national energy conservation and emission reduction strategy, urging banking financial institutions to closely integrate the adjustment and optimization of credit structure with the national economic structure, and effectively prevent credit risks; The Guidelines for Green Credit issued by CBRC 20 12 stipulates the organization and business management of green credit. In 20 14, the Key Evaluation Indicators for the Implementation of Green Credit issued by China Banking Regulatory Commission standardized the organization, management, internal control and coordination of green credit through 100. The Guidelines on Energy Efficiency Credit issued by China Banking Regulatory Commission and National Development and Reform Commission on 20 15 provide credit financing to support energy users to improve energy efficiency and reduce energy consumption, and provide guidance in key service areas, projects, credit methods, risk control, financial innovation and incentives and constraints; In 20 16, seven ministries and commissions, including the central bank, jointly issued "Guiding Opinions on Building a Green Financial System" (hereinafter referred to as "Guiding Opinions"), and put forward seven institutional frameworks of green credit. 20 19 March, seven ministries and commissions, including the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, jointly issued the Green Industry Guidance Catalogue (Version 20 19) and its explanatory documents, which further clarified the boundaries of green industries and comprehensively defined the green standards and scope of the whole industrial chain for the first time from an industrial perspective.
From the local level, from 2065438 to June 2007, the executive meeting of the State Council decided to build green financial reform and innovation pilot zones in selected parts of Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Guangdong, Guizhou and Xinjiang to promote the transformation and upgrading of green economy. At the same time, the central bank and other ministries and commissions jointly issued the overall plans for building green financial reform and innovation pilot zones in Huzhou and Quzhou of Zhejiang Province, Guangzhou of Guangdong Province, Hami, Changji and Karamay of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Gui 'an New District of Guizhou Province and Ganjiang New District of Jiangxi Province. Five pilot areas have successively issued a number of special policy documents on green finance, which support the development of green finance through a series of policies such as monetary and financial policies and fiscal and taxation policies. Governments at all levels in the experimental area have set up provincial, municipal and district-level green finance leading groups to promote various pilot projects. The central bank branches in the experimental areas have formulated the Measures for the Evaluation of Green Credit Performance and other documents, and actively guided the effective flow of financial resources to the green development field by means of rediscounting and incorporating green credit performance into the macro-prudential evaluation system (MPA).
The summary of China Green Finance Analysis Policy Report (20 19) jointly released by Shangdao Lv Rong and university of international business and economics in May 20 19 shows that by 20 19, there will be more than 5 10 policies related to green finance, except for the central government, 3 1 0. Among these policies, green credit accounts for the largest proportion.