In November 2023, CCB became an official signatory of the UN Principles for Responsible Banking (the “PRB” or the “Principles”), as well as a member of the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI).

Created by the UNEP FI in partnership with founding banks, the Principles were officially released at the UN Headquarters in New York in September 2019. Over the past four years, the number of signatories has increased from 130 in 2019 to currently over 320 from 80 countries, whose assets account for 50% of the global bank assets. The Principles contain six principles, those are, Alignment, Impact & Target Setting, Clients & Customers, Stakeholders, Governance & Culture, and Transparency & Accountability, which are important international standards for commercial banks to promote sustainable development. Signing the Principles is an important move for CCB to actively align itself with advanced international ESG governance concepts, which can help enhance CCB’s international reputation and market influence.

In recent years, CCB has always followed the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, and practiced the New Finance Initiative on all fronts. Leveraging modern technologies such as FinTech and big data, it continued to advance its three major strategies of housing rental, inclusive finance and FinTech, fully integrating the ESG concept into its strategic development, operation and management and corporate culture, and actively playing its role as a major bank in promoting high-quality and sustainable social development, facilitating ecological conservation and achieving common prosperity for all. From 2020 to 2022, CCB was assigned an A by MSCI ESG Ratings for three years straight. CCB was also awarded “China’s Best Bank for CSR 2022” by the Hong Kong magazine Asiamoney.

In future, CCB will, with the ESG planning vision of “striving to become a world-leading sustainable development bank”, increase support to green economy, circular economy and low-carbon economy and contribute financial power to the building of an ecological community in which humankind and nature coexist in harmony.