Author: Aayush Gupta

In our rapidly changing world, the landscape of risk is shifting beneath our feet. Among the most critical challenges confronting financial institutions and enterprises today is transition risk. But what exactly is transition risk, why is it crucial for businesses to take proactive measures, and how can Rimm’s CR360 Solution come to the rescue?

To mitigate the physical risks associated with climate change, we have no alternative but to transition towards a low-carbon economy. Transition risk therefore looms on the horizon. It refers to the business-related challenges and uncertainties that organizations can face as the world transitions towards a more sustainable, low-carbon, and environmentally responsible economy. Transition risk takes various forms:

1. Policy and Regulatory Risk: A shifting landscape of policies and regulations can significantly impact businesses. Stricter environmental rules may force companies to reduce emissions or adopt cleaner technologies, potentially resulting in dramatic costs and operational changes.
2. Market and Technological Risk: The tides of market dynamics and technological evolution can sway industries. Shifts in consumer preferences for eco-friendly products, emerging sustainable technologies, and resource scarcity can shake the foundations of traditional business models.
3. Reputation Risk: Mishandling the challenges raised by the transition can harm a company’s reputation, eroding trust, investor confidence, and employee morale.

In 2021, Deloitte’s report revealed that, if unaddressed, transition-related risks could destabilize the financial system, costing banks trillions of dollars in the decades to come. Given the seriousness of this emerging threat, many financial regulators and stock exchanges are now encouraging or requiring companies to adopt transition risk assessments, following the guidelines laid out by the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).

Rimm Sustainability is one of the very first to develop an automated SaaS tool – the CR360 Solution – that assesses how transitioning towards a low-carbon economy can affect a company’s financial landscape on a yearly basis from now up to 2050, assuming the company maintains business as usual. The CR360 Solution adopts a scenario-based approach. Scenarios provide the projected values of key macro-economic variables along potential transition pathways, factoring in myriad variables like energy use, technological shifts, policies, economic trends, and demographics, as well as their interactions. The model underlying the CR360 Solution thus employs those projected values to impact the financial projections of a given business over the critical decades ahead.

What’s the payoff? With Rimm’s CR360 Solution, businesses can:

1. Identify Vulnerabilities: Pinpoint risks and devise effective mitigation strategies.
2. Explore New Avenues: Delve into sustainable business models, products, and services, often leading to fresh revenue streams.
3. Adapt Governance: Stay agile in a rapidly changing landscape.
4. Boost Transparency: Meet the increasing demand for transparency and bolster investor confidence to attract capital.

Rimm’s CR360 Solution is not just about managing risk; it is about seizing opportunities. It empowers financial institutions and companies to not just weather the transition storm but to chart a visionary course toward a secure and sustainable future.

Transparency is the bedrock of trust in the sustainable bond market, ensuring that investors can make informed decisions and fostering accountability in financing projects with positive environmental and social impacts.

Green, Social and Sustainability (“GSS”) bonds have become an important part of global fixed income markets, as institutions and individuals look to align their investment portfolios with environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) priorities or with internationally recognized principles such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

In 2022, issuance of GSS bonds in Asia accounted for nearly one quarter of the global total, according Moody’s, with around US$115 billion of green bonds, US$54 billion of social bonds and US$29 billion of sustainability bonds.  The rapid growth in transaction volumes – which Moody’s expects to continue this year – has been largely driven by government policy and regulatory support, including country net zero targets, benchmark sovereign bond issues and a strong push towards developing regional and national standards and taxonomies.

At the same time, investor appetite for sustainable assets like GSS bonds is steadily increasing.  A report last year by Accenture found that around one third of Asia’s affluent investor base already invested along ESG lines, while a further 37 percent planned to do so in 2023.  This trend is likely to continue, as younger investors, who typically report greater interest in ESG, become the dominant decision makers in the region.

Varying standards

GSS bonds, also known as “labelled” bonds, are financial instruments whose proceeds must be used specifically for funding projects with dedicated environmental and/or social benefits.  Issuance of these securities has become widespread across several Asian economies, but there is still considerable divergence in the understanding and adoption of sustainable practices across different issuers, and consequent inconsistency in the quality of labelled bonds brought to market.

Against a backdrop of evolving regulation across the region, investors may struggle to verify the attributes associated with a bond in a particular country, and also to compare one against another.  Existing standards currently differ with respect to project criteria, green definitions and verification, while the methodologies used by the external reviewers and third party experts employed to certify their credentials also vary widely.

These conditions expose investors to the potential risk of funding activities whose sustainability performance does not meet their expectations, and opens them up to possible accusations of “greenwashing”.

Greater global transparency

One strategy for issuers and investors in the region is to look towards international standards for greater transparency.

The Green Bond Principles is a set of voluntary guidelines put together by the International Capital Market Association (“ICMA”), that establishes clear reporting on a green bond’s environmental objectives and estimated impact.  Examples of project categories eligible for green bond issuance include renewable energy, energy efficiency, clean transportation, green buildings, waste water management and climate change adaptation.  ICMA has also created similar guidelines for social and sustainability bonds.

A growing percentage of GSS bonds issued in Asia are now aligned to recognized frameworks, such as those developed by ICMA, or the recently launched ASEAN Green Bond Standards, which are themselves based on the Green Bond Principles.  Nevertheless, investors need to do their own due diligence on the issuer and the use of proceeds, especially in markets where this asset class is less well established.

Benefits from better data

Where investors are successfully navigating these challenges, and quality data is available, demand for GSS bonds is in some cases well ahead of supply.  Here, bondholders may enjoy a “greenium”, where labelled bonds have lower overall yields compared to their conventional alternatives.  Some GSS bonds also experience stronger secondary market performance and offer more liquidity than their vanilla equivalents with the same risk profiles.

As regulators continue to push for greater transparency across the region, better data will help to reduce funding costs for issuers, deepen markets and create more opportunities for investors.

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