Last week, I wrote a post on the impact of green sukuk being used to reduce carbon emissions in the GCC (which would lead to more crude exports to countries that use oil more efficiently in terms of units of GDP per barrel). The Climate Bonds Initiative, an investor-focused non-profit, which is working with the Clean Energy Business Council of the Middle East and North Africa and the Gulf Bond & Sukuk Association, has a Green Sukuk Working Group,that says its aim is "to channel market expertise to develop best practices and promote the issuance of sukuks for the financing of climate change investments and projects, such as renewable energy projects".
While I want to see some solid progress made, not just a press release, I am encouraged by the working group because renewable energy projects are areas where the Islamic finance industry (and the sukuk market, which acts almost as its public face) can differentiate themselves from most of conventional finance. One thing I would hope for the Working Group is that it makes documents relating to the meetings publicly available. As a non-profit, it would benefit the mission of the working group if ideas that originate within the working group were copied by Islamic financial institutions. Hopefully they will provide the maximum amount of transparency possible.
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