Background of ACMF’s Sustainable Finance Initiatives
ASEAN securities regulators have been playing a significant role in supporting the region’s commitment to sustainability. In November 2017, the ACMF launched the ASEAN Green Bond Standards, its first sustainable finance initiative. This was followed by the ASEAN Social Bond Standards and ASEAN Sustainability Bond Standards in October 2018, which altogether comprised a suite of sustainable standards for bonds. Building upon these earlier efforts, which have gained significant traction among ASEAN issuers, the ACMF developed the Roadmap for ASEAN Sustainable Capital Markets to chart the way towards sustainability for the region’s entire capital market.
These efforts were also complemented by the ASEAN central banks and insurance regulators, which led to the ASEAN Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors, at its 6th Meeting in October 2020, urging the enhancement of “a cohesive sustainable finance agenda cutting across banking, capital markets and insurance areas at the ASEAN Finance Ministers Meeting (AFMM) and ASEAN Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting (AFMGM) respectively, with greater coordination amongst the relevant ASEAN working committees”.
The first initiative of this coordinated process is the development of the ASEAN Taxonomy for Sustainable Finance, and the ACMF continues to work with other sectoral bodies within the ASEAN Finance Cooperation process to take ASEAN’s sustainable finance agenda forward.