Striving towards Carbon Neutrality – An Unprecedented Challenge that Brings New Opportunities

Climate change is a global risk demanding urgent responses.  For Hong Kong, our ambitious target to achieve carbon neutrality before 2050 brings both challenges and opportunities.  It requires the Government and the society to allocate substantial resources to formulate and implement measures to promote low-carbon transformation and enhance our capability in coping with the new normal.  While the Government will rigorously pursue climate actions set out in Hong Kong’s Climate Action Plan 2050, we need the business sector to join our quest for carbon neutrality and contribute to the growth of green and sustainable finance in Hong Kong.

Mr. C.F. WONG
Commissioner, Climate Change Unit
Environment and Ecology Bureau, HKSARG

Mr CF Wong is currently the Commissioner for Climate Change in the Environment and Ecology Bureau of HKSARG. He was an Assistant Director of the Environmental Protection Department (EPD) before joining the Bureau. Throughout his service with EPD, Mr Wong had taken up a wide range of responsibilities, including international collaboration, development of environmental infrastructures, environmental impact assessment, waste reduction and law enforcement.

Do Banks Need to Manage Climate-Related Financial Risk? And How?

This talk presents how climate change could impact the loss generating process for banks through the channels of physical and transition risks. Given the deep uncertainty about climate change and its potential impacts, we have to make climate-related data, scenario analysis and analytics available for climate risk management. It is equally important to have a taxonomy with the core elements of our local green classification framework such that the financial sector could play a role in channeling more capital resources to greener businesses and those with lower carbon emissions. The works related to these developments are presented.

Dr. Cho-Hoi HUI
Head, Banking Policy Division
Hong Kong Monetary Authority

Cho-Hoi Hui is a division head of the Banking Policy Department, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), where he is responsible for policy developments of climate risk management and Basel III. He was Chief Representative of the HKMA’s New York Representative Office and the Head of Market Research Division of the Research Department. Prior to joining the HKMA, he was a derivatives analyst at Citibank.   He has published on issues related to international finance and physics in a number of journals, including Journal of Geophysical Research, Journal of Banking and Finance, and Journal of Money, Credit and Banking. He is Adjunct Professor at Department of Economics and Finance of City University of Hong Kong and was Professor of Science Practice in Financial Mathematics at Department of Mathematics of The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He holds a BS in physics from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and a PhD in applied physics from Cornell University.

Accelerating the Net-Zero Transition: Recent Developments and Opportunities Emerging in Carbon Markets

Sustainability has become front and centre for individuals, corporates and industries worldwide, with carbon markets playing a key role in financing and scaling the environmental initiatives and innovation needed to address climate change. This session will explore the recent developments shaping carbon markets and highlight key trends and practices that are observed in the market.

Mr. Ken CHIU
Head of Carbon & ESG Products
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited

Ken Chiu serves as Head of Carbon & ESG Products at HKEX since 2022, responsible for fostering the Carbon & ESG product businesses for the exchange. He recently has led the team to successfully establish and launch the first brand new voluntary carbon marketplace at HKEX.

Mr Chiu has more than 15 years of experience in the industry. He has worked in various functional areas including structuring and marketing positions in global markets of investment banks in both Hong Kong SAR and Mainland China. He has also been actively engaging in RMB internationalisation and cross-border business activities since 2009.

Mr Chiu joined HKEX in 2018. Prior to his current role, Mr. Chiu was Senior Vice President of Fixed Income and Currency (FIC) Development responsible for FIC derivative and bond listing businesses at HKEX. He holds an MSc in Mathematics for Finance and Actuarial Science from the Université Paris-Dauphine and a BBA in Finance from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Integrating Climate Factors into Key Business Decisions

Climate change continues to be on a key agenda item of business leaders and political leaders. While the market is increasing aware of the significance of identifying and understanding climate and environmental risks, the ‘how’ remains challenging to most of us. How can corporates integrate climate risks and environmental risks into their key decisions? What does good practice look like? Can management translate risk management into competitive advantages?

Ms. Sammie LEUNG
Partner, Regional ESG Services
PwC Asia Pacific

Sammie is the PwC’s regional subject matter expert of ESG and climate services covering markets include Hong Kong, Mainland China, Singapore and Taiwan. Sammie is the founding member of the Hong Kong China team of 600+ ESG professionals where the PwC ESG practice categorises the key services into four key areas: Strategy & ESG Performance, Climate Risk & Resilience, Decarbonisation and Sustainable Value Chains.

Sammie assists clients in setting science-based target, decarbonisation strategy design and implementation. Sammie also works closely with clients in their TCFD adoption journey, which include identify, assess, quantify, manage, and disclose climate-relating risks and opportunities.

In addition to advising 100+ companies in ESG disclosures, Sammie has in-depth understanding with how the financial services sector integrate ESG and climate-related factors as their risk assessment and investment processes.

Sammie is the partner in charge of developing PwC’s proprietary digital assets include the PwC ESG Reporting Tool and Climate-relating risks assessment Tool (enabled science-model scenario analysis / NGFS framework)

In addition to client serving, Sammie serves the wider community  through active participation of knowledge sharing event and the following capacity:  

• Sustainability & Climate Action Taskforce of the Accounting & Financial Reporting Council
• Green Finance, Academy of Finance
• ESG Working Group of the Hong Kong Securities Institute 
• ESG Working Group and Policy Working Group of the Hong Kong Green Finance Association
• Audit Committee member of a tertiary education institution

Operationalizing Sustainability through Technology

As organizations and their sustainability programs continue to mature, they find themselves moving from “why” and “what” towards “how” as the expectations from a widening landscape of stakeholders evolve and strategies are challenged to demonstrate measurable impact. The recent COP27 was dubbed “The implementation COP”, reflecting the need to accelerate action and focus on how organizations deliver against commitments. Technology and ESG-related data will undoubtably enable this transition and this talk will explore the current ESG Digital landscape, share typical technology challenges facing organizations today and provide examples of potential solutions for companies of different sizes, resources and maturity.

Mr. Eimund LOO
Partner, Digital Advisory
ERM: Environmental Resources Management

Eimund has over 20 years of experience providing Professional Services and Technology consulting services over 4 continents with a proven track record of developing sustainable, innovative, and impactful solutions that create enduring business value. Working with multinational clients, public sector agencies and small-to-medium enterprises, Eimund has successfully delivered a range of advisory services and digital transformations that seamlessly integrate technology, risk management, sustainability and business operations.

Institutional Investors’ Responses to Climate Risks in Companies

Climate-related risks are among top ten in World Economic Forum’s 2023 Global Risks Report 2023. Every business is affected by climate physical and transition risks to different degrees, and the effects translate to various balance sheet and income statement impacts over the short-, medium- and long-term. Apart from meeting increasingly stringent regulatory requirements, investors recognize that climate risks and opportunities in portfolio firms must be integrated into their investment decisions to fulfill their fiduciary duties. How investors respond towards climate and environmental performances is important for companies when it comes to sourcing capital – fuel of sustainable growth – at reasonable costs. This presentation discusses recent academic findings and market trends on this crucial subject in behavioral finance.

Dr. Agnes K Y TAI
Director
Great Glory Investment Corporation

Agnes is Director of Great Glory Investment Corporation and Head of Sustainability Investment and Advisory of Arta TechFin Corporation Limited. She holds a Climate Designation certificate from Competent Boards, a Sustainability and Climate Risk certificate and a Financial Risk Manager certificate from Global Association of Risk Professionals, an ESG Investing certificate from CFA UK, and a CAIA certificate from Chartered Alternative Investment Association. Her board training in sustainability, governance, strategy and risk oversight spans five continents.

She is a Steering Committee member of Climate Governance Initiative Hong Kong Chapter, an Expert Review Panel member for the MTR Corporation sustainability reports since 2014, Advisory Board member of Asia Climate Forum, an ESG/climate judge for WealthAsia (Benchmark) Funds of the Year Awards, a Council member, Publishing Board of Magazine member and a Deputy Chair of the training committee of the Hong Kong Institute of Directors, faculty of Competent Boards, CSIA and FITC, board member of Hope of the City, advisory council/committee member of GARP (HK), BlueOnion, FarmacyHK and Shao Ming Lo Foundation. She has served the financial community across four jurisdictions in the past 43 years.

She has a PhD (2022) from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology with dissertation titled “Do carbon risks matter for Hong Kong equity prices?”, an MBA (1980) from the University of Chicago - Booth School of Business, a BSc (Honors, 1978) from Roosevelt University in USA and is a graduate of the Stanford University Senior Executive Leadership Program and the 2011 Stanford Directors’ College. She has authored a book on investing in H-shares, a Harvard Business case, a chapter in CFA Society Hong Kong’s 30th anniversary book ‘Rise from Crises’, and a book ‘Tall Miracles’.

Prof. Kar Yan TAM
Dean and Chair Professor
School of Business and Management
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Prof. Kar Yan Tam is Dean of the HKUST Business School and Chair Professor of Information Systems, Business Statistics and Operations Management. He joined HKUST in 1992 as a founding member of the School. Prior to being Dean of the Business School, he was Dean of Students and Associate Provost at HKUST leading the internationalization efforts of the University, improving the quality of the undergraduate education and supporting students’ holistic educational needs. Prof. Tam is currently a board member of Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) and European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) and was the Past President of the Association of Asia Pacific Business Schools (AAPBS). He is serving on the Curriculum Development Council and Hong Kong Productivity Council. He is an information system scholar specializing in Fintech and technology adoption and playing an active role in promoting academia-business collaboration projects and startups.

Prof. Ki Ling CHEUNG
Director, Risk Management and Business Intelligence Program
Associate Professor, Department of Information Systems, Business Statistics and Operations Management
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Prof. Ki Ling Cheung is an Associate Professor in the Department of Information Systems, Business Statistics and Operations Management, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He received a B.S. degree in Mathematics from University of Wisconsin, Madison, a M.S. degree and a Ph.D. degree in Industrial Engineering, both from Stanford University. Prior to joining HKUST in 1993, he was a management consultant at Teknekron Corporation, California, U.S.A. Dr. Cheung has extensive consulting experience in US, Canada and Hong Kong. His clients include companies such as Matsushita, British Petroleum, Dofasco Steel, Algoma Steel and Esquel. He also taught executive-level supply chain management courses for HKUST. His primary research interest is in inventory management and supply chain management, and his research work appears in leading professional journals such as Management Science, Operations Research, Manufacturing and Service Operations Management, IIE Transactions, Naval Research Logistics and Supply Chain Management Review. He had been a member of the editorial board for the supply chain management department of IIE Transactions. Prof. Cheung received the HKUST "Best Ten Lecturers" award in 1996. He is also a recipient of the Franklin Prize of Teaching Excellence in the Business School.