China’s green finance boom lacks ESG data

Regulators demand greater ESG disclosure as China’s emissions goals drive acceleration of green financing

Banks and other lenders to China’s net-zero transition are struggling to measure carbon emissions in their rapidly expanding portfolios of green assets because of the low quality and paucity of ESG data disclosed by Chinese companies, according to industry insiders and analysts. “The available data is quite limited,” says Guo Peiyuan, chairman of Syntao Green Finance, an ESG data and analytics provider in China. “This is already quite difficult for the listed [company] universe. For the small private companies, it is even more difficult.” Incomplete or unreliable corporate data is especially problematic for commercial banks due to their large customer base. “They have lots of lending custome