Case study: How ICBC takes action on its PRB targets: green finance and inclusive finance

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.

ICBC’s Basic Rules for Corporate Social Responsibility (ESG and Sustainable Finance) define social responsibility as the Group’s obligation to promote high-quality development while steadfastly following a civilizational path that supports advanced production, prosperous living, and a healthy environment. This includes offering effective financial support and services for the sustainable development of the Chinese nation, as well as ensuring equitable benefit-sharing with shareholders, customers, employees, society, and other stakeholders.

ICBC places a strong emphasis on communication with stakeholders. By establishing a framework that combines immediate and regular communication and facilitates discussions on specific topics and international exchanges, the bank ensures ongoing and positive engagement with key stakeholders. It actively utilizes new media platforms to encourage participation from relevant parties. To protect the rights and interests of investors, especially minority shareholders, ICBC strictly adheres to both domestic and international regulations on information disclosure. Throughout the reporting period, the bank consistently enhanced its proactive information disclosure system during periodic reporting and promptly addressed investor concerns through a voluntary disclosure column, making its communications more effective and responsive.

ICBC is committed to fostering green, low-carbon, and sustainable development among its suppliers. Its centralized procurement operations comply with national regulations and uphold the principles of transparency, fairness, justice, and integrity. The Administrative Measures for Centralized Procurement Suppliers have been updated to clarify the management requirements for assessing significant risks and illegal activities related to environmental protection, social responsibility, and corporate governance.

Valuing its employees, ICBC has invested in enhancing the employee incentive system and training programmes. It has maximized the role of employee representative assemblies, prioritized the protection of employees’ legitimate rights and interests, and advocated for equal employment opportunities and career development for female employees.

The bank is also proactive in promoting consumer protection education. It declared 2024 as the “Year of Consumer Protection Education Promotion Deepening” and launched initiatives tied to this theme. During the reporting period, ICBC conducted over 202,600 financial education activities, benefiting more than 1.856 million individuals.

Furthermore, the bank established “ICBC Sharing Stations” at 15,000 of its outlets. Utilizing the “ICBC Sharing Station” service platform, ICBC intensified its collaboration with volunteer service organizations, offering volunteer support, assistance, and other public welfare services to the community, thereby creating a “warm home” of volunteering, care, and assistance.

Additionally, ICBC utilized its Group’s social donation capabilities to support the poor and vulnerable, encouraged and guided employees to participate in volunteer activities, expanded channels for community service, and provided support for social charitable initiatives.

What actions were taken by ICBC on its PRB targets, green finance and inclusive finance?

In its 2024 Sustainability Report ICBC reports that it took the following actions on its PRB targets, green finance and inclusive finance:

• SMART Target 1: Green finance
• During the reporting period, ICBC released the “Opinions on Implementation of Supporting Green Development through Investment and Financing,” which outlined 18 specific measures across five key areas. These measures included strengthening support for critical green and low-carbon sectors, systematically advancing priorities related to carbon finance and transition finance, enhancing innovation in products and services, bolstering environmental, social, and governance (ESG) risk prevention and control, and improving support and guarantee mechanisms.
• Additionally, ICBC issued the 2024 Industry Investment and Financing Policy, which encompassed 50 industries across 17 segments, emphasizing a strong “green” focus while enhancing differentiated support and regulation. The Policy employs differentiated management strategies such as economic capital allocation, approval processes, pricing, and scale, aimed at guiding capital flow towards low-carbon and environmentally sustainable sectors. Moreover, the bank integrated key indicators, including technology, environmental friendliness, and energy consumption, into the client and project selection process for priority industries, thereby promoting the optimization of the industry structure.

• SMART Target 2: Inclusive finance
• ICBC implemented and enhanced its financing coordination mechanism to support small and micro enterprises. This involved the establishment of a four-tier collaborative and vertically integrated service system, encompassing the Head Office, branches, sub-branches, and outlets. Additionally, the bank effectively carried out the “Visiting Enterprises and Households” initiative. Utilizing a recommended list, ICBC expanded its customer outreach, facilitated efficient financing connections, and provided fast, convenient, and affordable capital services directly to the grassroots level.
• Furthermore, ICBC harnessed digitization to empower inclusive finance. It is committed to a technology-driven and innovation-led development approach, pursuing a path of online, intelligent, intensive, and ecological inclusive financial services, while continually enhancing its capabilities for high-quality development. The bank embraces the principle of “speaking with data and making decisions based on data”. Internally, it actively seeks effective information, while externally it engages in hierarchical alignment and broadens data dimensions to achieve complementary verification between internal and external data. This strategy lays a strong foundation for the innovation of digital inclusive financial products, modelling analysis, and targeted marketing.

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 ICBC, 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://v.icbc.com.cn/userfiles/resources/icbcltd/download/2025/esg2024en.pdf

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