Case study: How Bank of Jiujiang works with its clients and customers to encourage sustainable practices

Stakeholder identification and consultation

Please describe which stakeholders (or groups/ types of stakeholders) you have identified, consulted, engaged, collaborated or partnered with for the purpose of implementing the Principles and improving your bank’s impacts. This should include a high-level overview of how your bank has identified relevant stakeholders, what issues were addressed/results achieved and how they fed into the action planning process.

Bank of Jiujiang recognizes its stakeholders as governments, regulators, shareholders, customers, employees, suppliers, partners, communities, and others.

Through ongoing communication, both regular and real-time, as well as internal and external interactions, the Bank ensures comprehensive dialogue with various stakeholders and provides timely responses. Taking into account its business characteristics, development strategies, and national policies, Bank of Jiujiang identifies social responsibility topics, evaluates which are critical to its sustainable development and stakeholders, and discloses them in its Report.

A total of 1,292 valid questionnaires were distributed and collected from regulators, customers, employees, and other stakeholders. After analysis, the significance of selected issues was assessed.

Additionally, Bank of Jiujiang actively engages in activities organized by government departments to offer input on the low-carbon transition of the local economy. For instance, it participated in the Jiangxi iron and steel industry meeting and a business partnership facilitation event for provincial key steel enterprises and new energy industry chain operators, where it shared insights on “how green finance promotes the low-carbon transition of the steel industry”.

How did Bank of Jiujiang work with its clients and customers to encourage sustainable practices and enable sustainable economic activities?

In its 2023 Environmental, Social and Governance Report Bank of Jiujiang reports that it works with its clients and customers to encourage sustainable practices and enable sustainable economic activities as follows:

Bank of Jiujiang continues to advance and innovate in the field of green finance, supporting carbon reduction, low-carbon industries, and Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) initiatives. The bank has introduced several pioneering green financial products. With the “dual carbon” goals in mind, it has stepped up its efforts in innovation, offering new green financial products, ideas, and models to support the green transition of the real economy.

In January 2023, Bank of Jiujiang was chosen as a financial institution backed by the People’s Bank of China’s (PBOC) carbon emissions reduction support facility. To maximize the benefits of this facility, the bank issued the “Notice on Proactively Using the Carbon Emission Reduction Support Facility to Promote Business Development” and the “Notice on Further Strengthening the Initiatives of the Bank in the Utilisation of Carbon Emission Reduction Support Facility.” These notices helped to promote the implementation of related policies across the bank. Additionally, Bank of Jiujiang prioritized key carbon emissions reduction areas and developed special internal fund transfer pricing and other support policies to drive business implementation.

By the end of 2023, Bank of Jiujiang had supported the development of ten carbon emissions reduction projects in areas such as Jiujiang, Ganzhou, Pingxiang, and Shangrao, reducing annual carbon dioxide equivalent emissions by 78,600 tons.

Bank of Jiujiang also introduced special financial products for transformation, such as the “Carbon-Efficient Loan” and “Digital and Carbon Integration” in the transformation finance pilot cities of Jiujiang and Pingxiang in Jiangxi Province, innovatively linking loan pricing to the carbon emission performance of enterprises, and supporting the carbon reduction efforts of small and medium-sized industrial businesses.

For the industrial and commercial distributed photovoltaic sector, Bank of Jiujiang launched the “Photovoltaic Loan,” a green financial product to facilitate the construction of distributed photovoltaic power stations and promote carbon reduction in energy consumption.

To channel financial resources effectively to “agriculture, rural areas and farmers”, Bank of Jiujiang has explored the unique needs of local agricultural industries and developed a range of inclusive financial products tailored to these sectors. These products provide custom financing solutions to specific customer groups.

Moreover, Bank of Jiujiang applies targeted financial products across different industries and industrial chains in Jiangxi province by studying the distinct characteristics of each industry. This approach has led to the successful implementation of the “One County, One Produce” project. By the end of 2023, this project included 63 projects and 168 sub-projects, serving over 10,500 customers with a loan balance of RMB 11.677 billion. The loans covered a range of activities such as planting, livestock breeding, agricultural and sideline production and processing, trade services, agricultural machinery and equipment, etc.

UN Principles for Responsible Banking: Accelerating a positive global transition for people and the planet

With over 300 signatory banks representing almost half of the global banking industry, the Principles for Responsible Banking are the world’s foremost sustainable banking framework. Through these Principles, the banking community takes action to align core strategies, decision-making, lending and investment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and international agreements such as the Paris Climate Agreement.

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References:

This case study is based on published information by Bank of Jiujiang, located at the link below. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses. However, we made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the report’s meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original please revert to the following link:

https://www.jjccb.com/jjccb/investor_relation/social_responsibility/2024043017370688371/2024043017365371927.pdf

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