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Group aims to achieve overall targets with green investment and credit of RMB400 billion by 2025
HONG KONG and SHANGHAI, June 8, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- ESG is key to long-term stability and prosperity for customers of Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. (hereafter "Ping An" or the "Group", HKEx:2318; SSE:601318), says Benjamin Deng, Chief Investment Officer. "Ping An as the wealth keeper of clients' long-term income for retirement and wealth succession, we have to consider stability, prosperity, predictability and act 100% on their benefits and interests," Mr. Deng told the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) China conference last month.
Ping An's focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices in its business strategy is to enable the Group to prosper and support over 200 million retail customers and society as a whole, Mr. Deng said. The Group is driving initiatives to support a clean environment, social welfare and corporate governance. As a long-term institutional investor, Ping An is focused on investing in sustainable stocks or bonds for predictable and stable income. The Group does not want to invest in companies with rapid changes in governance and loose regulations, so governance is at the core of Ping An's research, he said.
Ping An has set a target of green investment and credit of RMB400 billion by 2025. As of 31 December 2021, the Group's green investment and financing was nearly RMB224.58 billion. In total, its overall responsible investment and financing was nearly RMB1.22 trillion, including inclusive investment and financing of nearly RMB68.5 billion, and social investment and financing of nearly RMB 926.9 billion. Ping An's green investment includes green buildings, roads with green license and clean energy projects. Alternative energy is a significant investment opportunity, Mr. Deng said, noting current pressures on the world's energy supply chain. He expects the scale of supply and demand of alternative energies will grow exponentially in the next decade.
Mr. Deng pointed out that Ping An is working both internally and externally to support net-zero greenhouse gas emissions targets. The Group aims to achieve operational carbon neutrality by 2030 and focuses on ESG investing and insurance. To support responsible investing more widely in China, Ping An also participated in drafting China's first ESG disclosure standard, the "Guidance for Enterprise ESG Disclosure", which took effect on 1 June. "We hope we can help the whole country to move into a very systematic and consistent framework that we can measure for China," Mr. Deng said.
Ping An has pursued sustainable development and related disclosure practices for many years. Driven by its sustainability strategy, Ping An integrates the core philosophies and standards of ESG into corporate management. It has built a professional sustainability management framework to guide its business practices. Ping An continues to advance its "integrated finance + healthcare" strategy and develop its industry ecosystems of "finance + eldercare" and "finance + healthcare" to create value for its shareholders, customers, employees, communities, partners and the environment, seeking to boost both business and societal value.
Ping An is a pioneer in responsible investment in China. The Group was the first Chinese asset owner to sign the UN-supported Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) and to join Climate Action 100+, the investor-led initiative to ensure the world's largest greenhouse gas emitters take action on climate change.
About Ping An Group
Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. ("Ping An") strives to become a world-leading retail financial services group. With over 223 million retail customers and nearly 657 million internet users, Ping An is one of the largest financial services companies in the world. Ping An focuses on two over-arching domains of activity, "integrated finance" and "healthcare", covering the provision of financial and health care services through its integrated financial services platform and ecosystems in financial services, healthcare, auto services and smart city services. The "finance + technology" and "finance + ecosystem" strategies aim to provide customers and internet users with innovative and simple products and services using technology. As China's first joint stock insurance company, Ping An is committed to upholding the highest standards of corporate reporting and corporate governance. The Group is listed on the stock exchanges in Hong Kong and Shanghai. Ping An ranked 17th in the Forbes Global 2000 list in 2022 and ranked 16th in the Fortune Global 500 list in 2021. Ping An also ranked 49th in the 2021 WPP Kantar Millward Brown BrandZTM Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands list.
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