Roadmap for China: Green Bond Guidelines for the Next Stage of Market Growth

This paper sets out a roadmap for the next steps of the green bond guidelines in the Chinese domestic green bond market, with the aim of harmonizing these guidelines with international practice.

To develop a roadmap for China’s guidelines, the paper uses the following framework:

Step 1: Current green bond guidelines released by China: What do they say?

Step 2: What is the international practice in the area? How does this compare to China’s guidelines?

Step 3: Roadmap to achieving harmonization between China’s green bond guidelines and international practice.

This framework has been applied to each segment of China’s current green bond guidelines: Green Definitions, Management of Proceeds of green Bonds, External Reviews and Assurance, and Reporting and Disclosure requirements.

Findings: The current state of harmonization is good. The table overleaf outlines the current state of harmonization and clearly shows that there is strong alignment in most areas. In particular, full alignment already exists for Management of Proceeds and Reporting and Disclosure guidelines. External Reviews and Assurance guidelines are closely aligned, with China taking early steps to strongly encourage the use of independent verification. Further efforts to harmonize the green bond guidelines should focus primarily on Green Definitions, with particular emphasis on development of Sector-Specific Criteria and the Basis for Criteria.

This is the first paper in a series of four discussion papers issued by IISD and the Climate Bonds Initiative on prospects for the Chinese green bond market. 

The four papers are:

• Roadmap for China: Green Bond Guidelines for the Next Stage of Market Growth (Paper 1)
• Roadmap for China: Scaling up Green Bond Market Issuance (Paper 2)
• Roadmap for China: Green Securitisation, Tax Incentives and Credit Enhancements to Scale Green Bonds (Paper 3)
• Roadmap for China: Extending the Joint Leadership on Green Finance (Paper 4)

中国人民银行和国家发展和改革委员会分别于2015年12月和2016年1月发布了绿色债券相关的政策文件。本文阐述了绿色债券指引在中国国内绿色债券市场的未来发展路线图，旨在实现绿色债券国内外标准的协调。

在为中国绿色债券指引制定路线图时，本文采用了以下框架结构：

步骤1：中国发布的现行绿色债券指引的具体内容是什么？

步骤2：这一领域的国际实践如何？与中国的绿色债券指引相比有哪些不同之处？

步骤3：如何实现中国绿色债券指引与国际实践的协调一致

上述框架用于中国现行绿色债券指引的各组成部分：绿色定义、绿色债券募集资金的管理、外部评估和鉴证，及报告和披露要求。

本文发现，目前中国绿色债券指引的大部分内容与国际上是一致的。具体来说，中国对绿色债券募集资金的管理、报告和披露的要求与国际是完全一致的。对于外部评估和鉴证的要求和国际指引大部分是一致的。中国甚至领先一步，积极鼓励对绿色债券进行独立核查。为进一步推动与国际绿色指引的一致性，中国应主要关注绿色定义方面，特别是在建立分行业的标准及标准制定基础方面作出努力。

国际可持续发展研究院和气候债券倡议组织就中国绿色债券市场发展前景发布了四份讨论报告，本报告是其中的第二份。这四份报告分别如下：

• 中国绿色债券发展路线图：在下一市场发展阶段的绿色债券指引（报告一）
• 中国绿色债券市场路线图：扩大发行规模（报告二）
• 中国绿色债券市场路线图：利用绿色资产证券化、税收优惠和增信措施扩大绿色债券的规模（报告三）
• 中国绿色债券市场路线图：增强中英绿色金融联合领导力（报告四）