April 2021 to March 2022

Koichiro Ohira(Chief Fellow, Institute for International Socio-Economic Studies)

   It is commonly accepted among countries around the world that human life and social activities are causing the global environment to deteriorate in various ways, such as rising air and sea temperatures, changes in ecosystems, rising sea levels, and acid rain. There is now a growing sense of urgency that the entire world must take action to address this situation. Doing so will entail implementing green projects that have a positive effect on the environment, and green finance schemes that provide financial support for projects of this sort are currently attracting attention. 

   We began this study by conducting a survey of green finance initiatives, focusing on basic matters such as the types of finance available, the required backgrounds of financed projects, and their associated ecosystems. We also conducted a survey of the situation in Japan, including the external evaluation institutions and data necessary for green finance evaluations, and the initiatives being undertaken by domestic financial institutions and ICT companies. We summarized these findings in an interim report. 

   Then in our final report, we discussed the principal climate change countermeasures being undertaken in the EU, the UK, the US, and major ASEAN countries and regions, the green finance trends in these locations, and the steps they are taking to promote green finance such as non-financial information disclosure and taxonomies, green finance × digital initiatives such as green fintech, and activities such as international alliances and international organizations that are involved in green finance. 

   In this study, we found that a lot of environment-related data is used in green finance evaluations, and that there is a growing need for ICT technology that can process this sort of data efficiently. We also summarized our main recommendations, which include expanding the contributions made by ICT companies to green projects and green finance by increasing the number of situations where green finance is used in the financing of ICT businesses, including the construction of energy-efficient data centers and the procurement of renewable energy.