Greater environmental disclosure key to drive green investing, survey finds
Buyers wary of climate-friendly opportunities as information from companies tends to be sparse
Greater disclosure by corporations of their environmental impact and mitigation strategies is needed to induce investors to put more money into their projects that reduce carbon emission and help tackle climate change, according to a survey.
Two thirds of the survey’s institutional investor respondents were willing to deploy more capital on green investments but a lack of disclosure by potential investment targets was a key deterrent, the HSBC-commissioned survey has found.
“This survey suggests there is a significant pool of capital available to firms with strong green credentials, but an absence of climate disclosure by companies, and a shortage of investors accessing research into this market, is putting a brake on allocation,” HSBC’s climate business council head Andre Brandao said in a statement on Friday.
The global bank set up the council to drive expansion of financing business arising from projects that cut carbon emissions and other forms of pollution, such as clean energy and energy efficiency improvement projects.
Less than a quarter of the corporate respondents had disclosed their environmental impact, and only 13 per cent of them had strategies to tap into green finance instruments to support carbon reduction initiatives, the survey found.