On 28 September, Hong Kong Green Finance Association (HKGFA) and Financial Services Development Council (FSDC) co-hosted a fireside chat session at Standard Chartered Bank, the venue sponsor, featuring William McDonnell, COO of The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM).

Mr Anthony Lin, CEO, GBA, Standard Chartered Bank, Dr Ma Jun, Chairman and President, HKGFA and Dr Rocky Tung, Director and Head of Policy Research, FSDC, delivered remarks at the beginning of the event. Ms Tracy Wong Harris, Executive Vice President, HKGFA and Managing Director, Head of Sustainable Finance, Asia, Standard Chartered Bank, moderated an interactive fireside chat session with the speaker, William, on the importance of building a high-integrity voluntary carbon market and how the Core Carbon Principles (CCPs) can facilitate that with its full version coming out covering Assessment Framework and procedures, which aims to deliver real impact at speed and scale to accelerate the progress on combating climate change.

Key insights shared:

• The need for representatives from Asia on the ICVCM Board and Working Group.
• Compatibility with other standards based on common thresholds should provide transparency and a good benchmark which can encourage liquidity to the market.
• Consistency with ICVCM and coordination with different players are highly encouraged for a potentially unified global market in the future.
• ICVCM will launch a series of work programmes to raise awareness, to engage in dialogues and to further increase the robustness of methodologies for addressing real market importance.

Read more about the 10 Core Carbon Principles as well as the Assessment Framework and Procedures: https://icvcm.org/the-core-carbon-principles/

A special thanks to FSDC for co-hosting this timely event with us, Standard Chartered Bank venue sponsor and ecoVINO Hong Kong for providing the sustainable wine. Thank you to our members and the business community for the excellent questions and lively, active participation.