Over the past few months alone, Chinese banks and corporations have been reinforcing a negative reputation with local people in places like Kenya, Myanmar and Peru, where Chinese-supported projects are taking root. In Kenya, communities have been raising concerns about harm from a coal-fired power project, sending three years of unanswered letters to the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), which is financing it. Kenyan litigation has stalled the project. In Myanmar, officials recently arrested Chinese nationals employed at three Chinese agribusiness companies for operating in protected forest reserves. Also in Myanmar, a Chinese-sponsored dam is facing intense opposition from local people. In Peru, local people protesting against the Las Bambas mine, a project of the Chinese firm MMG, have stopped production due to disputes over land use, compensation, and abuse of local people. This investment approach which ignores community feedback is costing Chinese firms dearly. Such community protests over the years are bringing about a conversation between some Chinese policymakers and regulators on how to prevent and avoid harm from Chinese investment. This conversation has the power to transform China’s approach to the trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative . The aspirational talk about the national importance of “greening” the Belt and Road Initiative may be precisely because of this reputational blowback. Regulators in China seem to be considering a new, wider interpretation of “green”, including the potential adoption of accountability frameworks for Chinese overseas investment. These frameworks, which are meant to protect the environment and local people and give them a way to raise grievances and receive remedies, have been a mainstay of multilateral development lending for decades. Although the affected communities have struggled to access tangible remedy through many of these existing accountability frameworks, they have at least provided a direct avenue to voice their grievances with investors, often when engagement with local-level project developers is not possible. These accountability frameworks benefit communities and investors alike, including allowing communities to be heard and investors to intervene before conflicts escalate. Three years ago, the Chinese government signalled that it would combine its global overseas lending ambition through the Belt and Road Initiative with a move to create accountability frameworks for that lending. In May this year, I attended a workshop in Shanghai sponsored by the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission and China Banking Association, among others. It was the fifth such workshop my organisation has attended on this evolving topic in three years. China can become one of the world’s biggest green innovators In Shanghai, the Asian Development Bank presented a draft policy it developed with funding from China, announcing it as the basis for discussion and possible adoption by Chinese financial institutions. It was a solid draft, reflecting the principles we look for in an accountability policy based on our decade of supporting community-led complaints, policy advocacy, and research in this field. The draft has the potential to launch an accountability office for Chinese finance that would – at least on paper – start to plug a currently glaring gap . In the Chinese context, there are two essential elements needed to move safeguards and accountability forward: first, top-down leadership mandating them, and second, a clear business case for why they matter. Based on the remarks made at the Shanghai workshop, the first element appears already satisfied. Chinese officials mentioned President Xi Jinping’s expressed commitment to environmental protection as mandating greater attention to the environmental and social risks that Chinese investment abroad brings. But the second element, the business case, requires that Chinese bankers understand the financial and reputational incentives to make safeguard policies and accountability frameworks meaningful. Investing without good governance tools will increase risks and costs, in terms of diminished investment returns, stranded assets and reputational damage. Because developing Chinese influence abroad is part of the point of the Belt and Road Initiative, this argument has particular sway. As has been evident in my conversations in China, local dissent in places such as Kenya, Myanmar, and Peru is simply not reaching the majority of bankers in China who are making the decisions affecting families around the world – but lacklustre financial returns are. Investors must understand these losses as resulting from poor social and environmental risk management in order for them to make better business decisions. And for the few bankers and policymakers who are getting information about local grievances and who are seeing the daily news stories about reputational harm, they cannot help but start to act on it. With the Shanghai workshop now over, it is imperative that Chinese financial institutions move quickly on implementing effective safeguard and accountability frameworks as China continues to invest abroad. It is estimated that the Belt and Road Initiative’s total investment could reach nearly US$1.3 trillion by 2027 – an amount that will cause further irreversible environmental devastation and human suffering if current approaches continue. China must engage civil society to make good on BRI’s green promise It is for that reason – the sheer enormity of the consequences of not making progress – that we will be working with Chinese partners and international civil society colleagues, and will be in regular communication with Chinese officials as the conversation continues. What happens next in the process of turning paper to practice for Chinese policy and commercial banks over the next year will show communities around the world what to expect when Chinese banks and corporations arrive in local towns and villages. Can families trust that a fair, effective way to engage with Chinese investors is forthcoming, benefiting all parties? Or will complaints to Chinese investors continue to go unanswered, escalating disputes, and benefiting no one? The stage is set. Natalie Bridgeman Fields is the founder and executive director of Accountability Counsel