OREANDA-NEWS. June 11, 2013. In the “2013 Report on China Green Companies Top 100” released at the Annual Summit of Green Companies on April 20, Alibaba Group, Haier Group and General Electric topped the rankings of private businesses, SOE-controlled companies and foreign-funded enterprises respectively. Industrial Bank, the first “Equator bank” in China and the forerunner and advocator of green finance, climbed to the 6 th place, up 12 positions. It is the fourth consecutive year that the bank has featured in the China Green Companies Top 100.

Starting from 2008, the “China Green Companies Top 100” is the first cross-sector ranking for assessing the sustainable competitiveness of enterprises in China, and it is praised as the most forward-looking assessment system for the competitiveness of enterprises. In this year, the criteria of assessment are centered on the following five cross-sector indexes: culture, economy, society, environment and innovation.

This year's rankings were divided into three categories based on private businesses, SOEs and foreign-funded enterprises, including 50 private businesses, 20 SOEs and 30 foreign-funded enterprises with investment in China.

These ranked enterprises were selected from more than 1,400 listed and non-listed companies featuring in “Top 500 Chinese Enterprises”, the “Top 500 Chinese Private Businesses” and “Fortune Global 500” and boasting outstanding achievements in environment and social responsibilities. In addition, detailed information collection, questionnaire survey or secret research over 254 enterprises.

As the first “Equator bank” in China and the forerunner and advocator of green finance, IB has made sustained innovation and bold attempt around “green finance” in recent years. From the launching the first energy-efficient financing program and integrated services for carbon finance, to taking the lead in promising to follow the Equator Principles and to setting up a specialized institution and the sustainable finance department, IB has taken a leading position in the industry in a number of aspects such as market concept, social influence, product development, technical regulations, service fields and organizational guarantee, exploring a “green-to-gold” path of sustainable development.

By the end of 2012, IB has accumulatively extended nearly RMB 200 billion green finance based loans to around a thousand enterprises, with financing balance of green finance exceeding RMB 110 billion. All the projects participated in by the bank may save 23.16 million tons of coal equivalent across China each year, reduced 66.83 million tons of carbon dioxide, and saved 255.79 million tons of water, and it is equivalent to shutting off 153 thermal power plants of 100 MW or stopping running 70,000 taxes for 46 years.

In his speech during the National People's Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in this year, Board Chairman Gao Jianping of Industrial Bank (IB), a CPPCC member, suggested that we should bring into full play the efficient resources distribution function of modern finance to guide funds into green industries such as energy conservation and environmental protection in a more effective manner at a faster rate and produce due benefits with the financial incentive mechanisms regarding special financing scale, interest rate concession, loss sharing, and carbon finance. We should exert the irreplaceable role of finance to boost and adjust the development of all sectors and industries and restrict funds from flowing into those industries and enterprises of high pollution, high energy consumption and backward production capacity, which may lead to enormous consumption and damage to resources and environment by resorting to financial means such as total emission control, industry-based loan limit, and “one-vote-down system” of environmental protection.