Bank of China has issued the instructions on resource conservation and called for the whole workforce to save water, electricity and paper.
In compliance with the state policy concerning energy saving, Bank of China has set the air-conditioning temperature above 26 ℃ in summer and below 20 ℃ in winter, placed recycling bins in the working area for the collection and disposal of hazardous waste such as used battery, electronic refuse and waste oil mud.
Tips for saving paper and ink are advocated among staff, and the interior office system network has been built up to save both manpower and physical resources by online transfer of documents.
Notable progress has been made on "energy-saving and emission reduction" activity. Taking Bank of China head office for example, based on the additional office area of 3,000 square meters, 2,814 cubic meters of water and 21,283 cubic meters of gas were saved from consumption in 2007 compared with the figures of 2006. The energy consumption expenditure for after-tax profit of RMB 10,000 on average declined yearly to RMB 162 in 2007.
Strictly Control Loans to "Two-High" Industries
Bank of China has strictly adhered to the state policy towards "two-high" (high energy consumption and high pollution) industries, and enhanced its research on the certain field so as to take warnings of and prevent the industrial credit risk timely.
Specifically, Bank of China has granted credit to the smelt industries such as iron & steel and copper selectively and controlled their credit extension pace; raised the credit access conditions for textile, coke and cement industries; strictly limited the credit extension to electrolytic aluminum, ferroalloy, calcium carbide industries, while stressing on the optimization of existing credit and the improvement of asset quality.
Meanwhile, Bank of China has strengthened the follow-up of loans by focusing on the examination and acceptance reports of projects, inspecting the environmental protection performance of enterprises regularly, and reclaiming the loans in advance from the high-pollution enterprises.
Besides, it has attached importance to the cooperation with environmental protection and supervisory departments, and taken the energy-saving and environment-friendly compliance as the precondition for credit granting. Credit will not be given to the enterprises that violate the state policies on project approval (record-keeping), pre-checking for land use, environmental impact assessment, energy-saving assessment, labor safety, urban planning, or the projects covered by the "regional restricted approval system", or the enterprises listed in the Catalogue of Commodities Prohibited for Processing Trade, or the projects or enterprises on the black list of backward production and environmental violation.
Support Energy-Saving and Environment-Friendly Projects
In light of the state policies concerning industrial energy-saving and environmental protection, Bank of China has adopted the following measures: to accelerate the credit structure adjustment, to support and encourage small- and medium-sized innovative businesses and energy-saving and environment-friendly projects, to conduct the environmental compliance review of new credit projects, and to execute stringent environmental impact assessment on the pollution prevention and waste reduction capacity of enterprises;
The Bank has strengthened the environmental supervision on construction project and the integrated management on energy conservation, environmental protection and comprehensive utilization, and set up a daily communication system with environmental protection authorities;
Focused on establishing long-term Green Credit system and monitoring the fund flow and construction progress to ensure the construction of environment-friendly facilities can progress concurrently with the main engineering project;
For instance, Bank of China issued loans up to RMB 50 billion last year to the "green" projects such as Liaoning Hongyanhe Nuclear Power Project (phase one), Shougang relocation project, and waste heat power generation project of Anhui Conch Cement Group.
Innovate Environment-Friendly Financial Products
In 2003, Bank of China, together with China Environmental Protection Foundation, developed the first environment-friendly financial product - the "Green Xin Yi Tong" savings deposit business which, based on customers' entrustment, donated the interest of customers' savings deposit or cash to China Environmental Protection Foundation for the amelioration of ecological environment, the construction of ecological theme park as well as the publicity and education on environmental protection in western China.
