(Yicai Global) Aug. 19 -- A milestone achievement of the 2018 China-UK Economic and Financial Dialogue, the One Belt, One Road Green Investment Principles are finding wide acceptance among all other parties to China's signature initiative to promote global trade routes.

Thirty large financial institutions around the world have subscribed to these principles as of this month, per the latest statistics that Yicai Global received at the first plenary session of the Belt and Road Green Investment Principles held in Beijing on Aug. 16.

The Green Finance Committee of China Society for Finance and Banking and the Green Finance Initiative – London jointly issued the Belt and Road Green Investment Principles at the conference. The principles comprise seven elements, including embedding sustainability into corporate governance, adequately understanding environmental, social and governance risks, full disclosure of environmental information, enhanced communication with stakeholders, full use of green financial instruments, and adoption of green supply chain management and capacity building through multi-party cooperation.

The One Belt, One Road green investment principles were included among the summit forum results list as an important achievement at the Second Belt and RoadForum for International Cooperation in April.

The global financial institutions that signed onto the principles include major Chinese financial institutions involved in Belt and Road investment, and their counterparts from the UK, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, the UAE, Pakistan, Kazakhstan and Mongolia.

The green investment principles aim to support the construction of an environmentally-responsible Belt and Road through financial means, Ma Jun, director of the Green Finance Professional Committee of the China Finance Association, said at the meeting. They will integrate environmental factors into project planning and construction, and adopt environmental risk analyses, he added, while strengthening disclosure and product innovation, expanding green investment, and reducing high carbon and polluting projects.

Most global infrastructure investment will occur in the Belt and Road countries, research shows, and 70 percent of carbon dioxide emissions stem from infrastructure construction and operation. Future Belt and Road investment projects may affect the global climate in these regions and exert a major impact on the environment.

Countries and regions along the Belt and Road (including some EU member states) represent nearly 5 billion people and their USD39 trillion total economic output, per a report the Natural Resources Conservation Association has published on the Green Belt Capacity Cooperation and Development of the One Belt, One Road High-Energy Industry. These figures are about 70 percent and 52 percent of the global totals, respectively.

The annual infrastructure investment needs of countries and regions along the Belt and Road is projected to top USD1.5 trillion.

Editor: Ben Armour