A number of banks "test the water" of personal carbon accounts——
How finance can leverage the carbon reduction market
Our reporter Wang Baohui
Under the guidance of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, "green credit" and "low carbon finance" have gradually become a new growth curve for the banking industry to support the transformation and development of the real economy.
Recently, China Construction Bank, China CITIC Bank and other banks have launched carbon account solutions.
Industry insiders said that the attempt of the banking industry to develop carbon account financial services will not only help to expand the coverage of carbon accounts, but also help the system to promote individual consumption behavior towards a green and low-carbon direction as financial institutions continue to exert their efforts on the green consumption side. change.
Building green and low-carbon application scenarios
At the beginning of March this year, "personal financial services based on 'carbon ledger'" declared by China Construction Bank was selected as the fourth batch of innovative application cases for Beijing's financial technology innovation supervision tools.
At the same time, China CITIC Bank announced the launch of the beta version of the "CITIC Carbon Account" for individual users.
This is a personal carbon account launched by China CITIC Bank in cooperation with Shenzhen Emissions Exchange and Shanghai Environment and Energy Exchange.
What is a carbon account?
"Carbon account is a specific practice of carbon finance, with carbon credit reporting as the core, guiding commercial banks to optimize and upgrade around the three key links of system, process and product, and to realize the optimal allocation of resources as a financial system arrangement, thereby realizing commercial The carbon emission accounting of bank investment and financing business is operable, measurable and verifiable." Wang Huijun, executive deputy general manager of Beijing Green Exchange, said in an interview with a reporter from Economic Daily that the application of carbon account scenarios is divided into individuals and enterprises, which can cover industry and agriculture. , energy, construction, transportation and residential life and other fields.
According to the collection and accounting of carbon emission data in different scenarios, it is converted into monetary value through the carbon trading market to form a market price, and then play the role of cost constraint and income incentive of price.
As far as individuals are concerned, the current form of carbon account is the carbon emission reduction account.
Simply put, it is to monitor low-carbon behaviors in personal clothing, food, housing, and transportation activities, and to quantitatively evaluate carbon emission reduction behaviors and effects.
Zheng Chenyang, a researcher at the Bank of China Research Institute, said that embedding carbon accounts in various application scenarios is conducive to enhancing the public's green and low-carbon awareness and improving carbon emission reduction efficiency.
For example, personal green travel, garbage sorting, water and electricity saving, waste recycling, and corporate green loans and green bonds can all be converted into carbon emission reductions, forming corresponding carbon credits in exchange for credit concessions, gift and service exchange, carbon Market transactions and other rights and interests allow customers to obtain benefits through their own low-carbon and environmentally friendly behaviors, and promote individuals to actively reduce energy consumption levels.
At present, the launch of carbon accounts by many banks is also a specific action to implement green financial policies, especially for personal green retail business. By innovating green financial products and meeting personal green financing needs, it is in line with the strategy of expanding domestic demand under the new dual-cycle development pattern and Bank retail transformation positioning.
The relevant person in charge of China Construction Bank said that, relying on the construction of the low-carbon life ecological scene model room, through the CCB Life APP, mobile banking APP and other terminals, it can identify users' green behavior in daily low-carbon life and financial scenarios. Intelligent and other digital technologies are used to measure carbon emission reduction, form a personal carbon account, and record the personal carbon footprint of the consumer.
Banks have "tested the water" carbon account is also the need to expand business.
According to the calculation of CITIC Carbon Account, China CITIC Bank credit card users can reduce carbon emissions by more than 2 million tons annually through low-carbon behaviors in online financial services.
Zheng Chenyang’s analysis believes that the reason why banks develop their businesses in this way is that, after personal green and low-carbon behaviors are bound to their own carbon accounts, they can not only attract incremental customers, activate existing customers, lower their service focus, and deposit scattered funds, but also It can enhance the stickiness between banks and customers and expand other businesses, and promote the development of new business forms and new models through green and low-carbon transformation.
Wang Yao, Dean of the International Institute of Green Finance, Central University of Finance and Economics, believes that banks providing oriented green financial services can guide more entities to participate in carbon emission reduction to a certain extent.
Using carbon accounts, financial institutions can accurately obtain the carbon emission performance of individuals or companies, and through horizontal comparison and vertical analysis, they can provide individuals or companies with differentiated green financial services based on carbon emission reduction performance, so as to promote more financial initiatives. The main body enhances the initiative to reduce emissions.
The carbon account system needs to be improved
In order to promote the transformation of personal consumption to green, the "Implementation Plan for Promoting Green Consumption" issued by seven departments including the National Development and Reform Commission at the beginning of this year proposed to guide banking and insurance institutions to standardize the development of green consumer financial services, promote the development of consumer finance companies' green business, and facilitate production, Enterprises and individuals who sell and purchase green and low-carbon products provide financial services to improve the coverage and convenience of financial services.
Green consumer financial services are all kinds of financial support provided by financial institutions for consumers' green consumption activities, guiding financial resources to gather low-carbon behaviors of individuals from the demand side, such as green consumer loans, green credit cards and other products.
Zheng Chenyang said that carbon accounts are a type of green consumer financial services. Banks associate individual customers' green consumption behaviors with carbon accounts, record personal carbon footprints and carbon emission reductions, and convert them into financial service discounts.
It is undeniable that the development of green finance has greatly improved the enthusiasm of enterprises to reduce emissions, but in contrast, at present, the awareness and motivation of individuals to reduce emissions is relatively lacking.
At present, the construction of my country's carbon market is still in its initial stage, and carbon accounts are mainly established by enterprises and voluntarily participated by residents, and a systematic carbon account system has not yet been formed.
Wang Yao said that the development of carbon accounts in the future still faces many difficulties.
From the perspective of the carbon accounting system, the calculation method behind the carbon account is mainly to achieve the corresponding conversion through the carbon emission factor, and the determination of the carbon emission factor is an extremely complicated process, and different emission conditions need to be considered for different regions.
In addition, the determination of the baseline in the emission reduction calculation is also crucial, and it is difficult to reasonably determine the baseline in the face of complex public behavior.
In the future, with the continuous improvement of big data, it is expected to continuously improve the rationality of the determination of the baseline.
In fact, most of the personal carbon accounts are related to daily online life payment (water fee, electricity fee, gas fee, etc.) and other behaviors.
Zeng Gang, director of the Shanghai Finance and Development Laboratory, said that personal green consumption has diversified characteristics, and banks cannot fully capture how much carbon an individual consumes in daily life.
Different from mandatory emission reduction and disclosure of carbon information, the personal carbon account is different from the corporate carbon account, and its main purpose is to cultivate the public's concept of green consumption.
In addition, the carbon account needs to collect the corresponding information on the daily life and production behavior of individuals or enterprises, and there is no accurate and unified information source for the collection of personal information at present.
As people from all walks of life pay more and more attention to information security, how to ensure that personal and enterprise-related information is not leaked is also related to the future development of carbon accounts.
Explore the digital ledger of carbon reduction
Achieving the "dual carbon" goal is a broad and profound social and economic transformation, and it is also a systematic project.
For the banking industry, it is necessary to continuously improve green consumer financial services, and do a good job in mapping and understanding the current status of customers' green consumption.
However, for individuals or companies at the micro level, there is still a lack of consistent accounting data standards, and exploring a digital ledger of carbon emission reductions may be able to fill this gap.
According to Wang Yao, although many financial institutions are making every effort to improve the green supply side of carbon accounts, they still need to continue to pay attention to the innovation and exploration of financial products.
For example, during the Beijing Winter Olympics, the Beijing Green Exchange established a carbon inclusive project to encourage the public to obtain corresponding carbon emission reductions through green and low-carbon travel, and the proceeds can be used for public welfare activities or exchange of shopping vouchers. This is a useful attempt to digitize the ledger.
The most important reason why the digital account of carbon emission reduction is valued by the industry is that in the process of developing the carbon account, it is necessary to improve the scientificity and accuracy of carbon data accounting, which is also the key to the development of low-carbon finance.
Zheng Chenyang suggested that banks should collect customers' carbon footprint and carbon emission reduction information through multiple channels through government support and technical means, and explore a standard and unified carbon accounting system; enterprises should strengthen the standardization and transparency of environmental information disclosure and establish carbon emission data. monitoring platform.
Only when the two work together can the efficiency and accuracy of carbon data collection and processing be improved.
In addition, the carbon account cannot ignore the protection of customer privacy and consumption habits while collecting customer information and data.
Xue Fang, deputy secretary-general of the Beijing Credit Society, believes that some financial institutions should be seriously held accountable for leaking and abusing customer privacy. It is recommended that regulatory authorities conduct regular monitoring and review of the information security of personal carbon accounts through on-site inspections and off-site monitoring.
In terms of financial technology-enabled carbon accounts, the banking industry should continue to invest in research and development funds, make full use of big data, artificial intelligence, blockchain and other technological means to expand potential customers, accurately analyze user needs, and customize digital ledgers for the full life cycle.
The development of carbon accounts is not an overnight success. Although some innovative achievements have been made in the construction of personal carbon accounts, it is still at the stage of crossing the river by feeling the stones.
Wang Huijun suggested to strengthen the quantitative ability from the perspective of the green financial system; cooperate with relevant institutions to study the establishment of personal carbon accounts; rely on corporate carbon accounts, build corporate ESG disclosure systems and financial institutions environmental information disclosure platforms, in order to promote the development of green finance and the construction of personal carbon accounts Provide support.