OREANDA-NEWS. February 15, 2013. In recent years, ICBC catalyzed actions in support of the principle of "green credit". More loans were provided to support "Green" industries such as environmental conservation, energy-saving or emission reduction. Between 2010 and 2012, ICBC has lent about RMB 750 billion to green economy and provided loans for 7,775 green projects, reported the press-centre of ICBC. 

At the end of 2012, of all ICBC domestic corporate customers, over 99.9% were eco-friendly companies or have reached eco standards, and over 99.9% corporate loans went to these companies. The remaining less than 0.1% of the companies were in the process of getting eco-certification. ICBC was the only large commercial bank to be honored "Best Performing Energy-Saving Unit in Eleventh Five-Year Period", in recognition of the Bank's excellence in green credit.

In 2007, ICBC was the first bank in China to initiate "green credit", a long-term growth strategy to shape ICBC into a world-class green financial institution, heading all domestic peers. During the last few years, ICBC looked to the future when extending loans to build a balanced portfolio, according to the carbon emission in different sectors and companies. Loans were provided to green companies, key national energy saving projects (ESP), key projects that protect the environment, and eco-technology restructuring or upgrading projects. The first priority was the customers engaged in green projects related to new energy, energy saving and environmental protection, and resource utilization, a shift in the focus of lending policy towards green companies and sectors.

While extending more credit to green companies, ICBC enforced strict "green" threshold in the management of loans to ensure the "green" allocation of loan resources. ICBC embeds the national environment protection standard into the whole process of credit management. All corporate loans of ICBC are classified according to the extent of "green", which means companies or projects supported by ICBC loans are classified into 4 levels, 12 categories based on the impact caused to the environment and the environmental risk faced. Corresponding lending rules and management requirements are laid out for different categories of green loans. From the perspective of "green credit", ICBC also draws up the management requirements and major concern for loan investigation, review, approval, contract signing and post-lending management, covering all steps of green credit management. Especially in the approval of loans, ICBC rejects any loan application from enterprises that fail to meet eco-friendly standards regardless of how well they perform financially or how high the economic benefits they bring. The goal is to prevent any environmental risk arising from project location, pollution emission and resources consumption.

In the next step, ICBC will speed up innovation on green financial products and services, taking into account the China industry polices, environmental protection policies and industry growth. By referencing green financial products of other banks in China and overseas, a range of green financial products, such as loan for energy-saving re-engineering, loans secured by pollution emission right, loans pledged under carbon assets, buyer's credit for energy-saving/eco equipment, will be launched to better match the funding gap of green companies while ensuring risk control.