/sustainable

News and resources on ESG data and technology, Impact Investing and Sustainable Finance initiatives and best practices.

Discussion
Bankers Beware - All that is green is not gold - A view through the Risk Management Lens
Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan

  More on Alberta - Shell Carbon Credit Financial Engineering here. 
Bankers Beware - All that is green is not gold - A view through the Risk Management Lens
Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan

  I've been exploring a "green solution" for cooling at my apartment based on Solar AC. I haven't found any core engineering solutions for 15+ years. Whereas I can set up "Green AC" overnight by resorting to financial engineering. IME most green projects are green by financial engineering rather than operations e.g. chopping 1000 trees on the path of new metro and committing to plant 1000 trees somewhere else; driving an EV to avoid polluting pollute roads and producing the electricity required to charge the batteries by burning fossil fuels at a power plant elsewhere; buying carbon credits to offset carbon emission caused by AI datacenters instead of running the AI datacenters natively on renewable energy. No telltale signs required! Whenever in doubt, bankers can assume that green projects involve financial engineering and adopt Financial Engineering best practices for Green Loan Risk Management!! 
Bankers Beware - All that is green is not gold - A view through the Risk Management Lens
Saloni Ramakrishna

Saloni Ramakrishna

  Thank you sir. Given your experience, can you please suggest some tell tale indicators that Bankers can watch out for to spot financially engineered projects, in the context of green financing?
Bankers Beware - All that is green is not gold - A view through the Risk Management Lens
Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan

  Having sold computers and software to Wall St and Dalal St for 35 years, I'd like to think that I've a reasonable understanding of how banks work. Going by my tribal wisdom, I'm betting that Green Loan will adopt Financial Engineering best practices before Green Loan Risk Management will scale new heights!!!