East & Southeast Asia Green Central Banking Scorecard: launch event

We hosted a webinar with a panel of experts and the lead author of ‘The East & Southeast Asia Green Central Banking Scorecard’ on 10th September 2025. Watch the event recording below.

Countries in the ASEAN+3 (a group of 13 nations in East and Southeast Asia) are being heavily impacted by climate breakdown, but many remain structurally locked into fossil fuel extraction; initially established as the foundation of several economies in the region by colonial powers. Through monetary policy and regulation of the private financial sector, however, central banks hold immense power to guide finance away from ecologically destructive industries and towards green sectors.

This is the context for our first East and Southeast Asia Green Central Banking Scorecard. For this report, we have applied our analysis and ranking of green monetary and financial policies, developed in our successful G20 Green Central Banking Scorecard series, to the ASEAN+3 (APT) region.

This report is the first of its kind to provide a country-by-country analysis of green central banking in the APT, providing a benchmark against which to measure future progress. While no country is found to be implementing green central banking policies at a scale commensurate with the severity of the ecological crisis, the level of development of policies across the 13 countries varies dramatically. To see the full breakdown of results, the Scorecard is available to view here, or take a look at our posts on X, Bluesky and LinkedIn.

The Scorecard launch event

To dive deeper into the success and challenges across the region, we brought together leading experts to launch the Scorecard with a deeply enlightening webinar discussion. Our panel of experts included: Dr Ma Jun (Institute of Finance and Sustainability, formerly Chief Economist at the People’s Bank of China’s Research Bureau), Aziz Durrani (ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office), Siti Kholifatul Rizkiah (WWF Malaysia), Laura Canas da Costa (UNEP Finance Initiative), Dr Heru Rahadyan (Bank Indonesia), Joe Herbert (Positive Money and lead author of the Scorecard). The event was chaired by Janice Lim (The Business Times), and we welcomed a variety of attendees from the world of climate finance, campaigns, and academia, as well as representatives from the central banks of Sri Lanka, Singapore, Indonesia, Angola and Eswatini. The report and launch event have since received coverage in The Korea Times, The Business Times, Renewable Matter and Green Central Banking.

To begin the event, Joe shared with us some of the key findings from the report, highlighting the significant divergence in progress across the region. Joe noted how the score disparity can largely be attributed to lesser capacity and resources amongst the lower scoring countries, shaped by enduring legacies of colonialism and the unequal international monetary and financial system. Some notable exceptions to this trend however are Japan and Republic of Korea; countries that are outperformed in the Scorecard rankings by several countries with comparatively lower capacities and historical contributions to climate change. However, none of the central banks in the region have adopted any policies that Positive Money considers ‘high impact’ measures: policies that actively divert finance away from the most ecologically damaging economic activities (e.g. fossil fuel production) across all assets and sectors, showing there is still much progress to be made.

Our panel contributions began with Dr Heru Rahadyan, Deputy Director at the Department of Inclusive and Green Economy and Finance at Bank Indonesia (BI). He noted how “central banks are no longer just guardians of price stability”, arguing that they have to consider climate and environmental risks that affect longer term economic resilience. He thanked the authors for the Scorecard as “a benchmark of progress, a spotlight on the gaps and a call to action”, and highlighted some of the actions BI has taken that are assessed in the report, such as green sukuk bonds, its green investment taxonomy, a green SMEs programme and climate stress testing for the Bank’s balance sheet. Dr Heru shared three challenges that remain for BI: the limited availability of climate-related financial data, market readiness (as green projects continue to be seen as riskier, with more needed to prove their viability), and balancing environmental action with other central bank mandates. He ended his remarks with a call to action that “today’s scorecard is not the end, it is the starting point”, and confirmed BI’s commitment to working together on this.

Next to share thoughts was Siti Kholifatul Rizkiah, lead on the Sustainable Financial Regulations and Central Bank Activities (SUSREG) tracker at WWF. She welcomed the Scorecard as a valuable exercise and stocktake, to show both how far individual countries have come but also to allow us to “see where the gaps are and raise ambition”. Siti explained that at WWF they have observed that most central banks in the region have issued some kind of sustainable financial supervisory expectation, putting East and Southeast Asia ahead of several other regions. While many are starting to develop green taxonomies, it is the mandatory disclosures against these that are missing, as she noted: “incentives are important but we need the stick, if it’s just carrots you end up feeding the horse without steering it”.

Aziz Durrani from the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO) added that the report is very timely, picking up on lots of live issues with climate events and biodiversity loss having significant impacts. He noted that a key challenge to consider for this region, that differs from Europe and the US, is the need for progress on climate to be balanced with development needs, as many economies in the region have not fully industrialised. He also emphasised how important APT countries working together to align regulations is, such as through initiatives like the ASEAN taxonomy, in order to prevent companies moving to more weakly regulated markets. In the context where the US is rolling back on its commitments, Aziz added that this presents an opportunity for APT to step forward and set the debate, as we did in the report.

Dr Ma Jun, President of the Institute of Finance and Sustainability shared his experience from his time as Chief Economist at the People’s Bank of China, where in 2016 China was the first country to produce a top-down framework for green finance. Thanks to this framework, nine years later China has developed the largest green lending market, equivalent to 6 trillion USD. Dr Ma named the key ingredients for China’s success, beginning with developing a clear taxonomy at regulatory level, to ensure against greenwashing and to allow comparison between banks. He also emphasised the importance of incentives based on the taxonomy, disclosure requirements and clear definitions of green financial products such as green bonds.

Laura Canas da Costa, Global Policy Co-Lead at the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI), concluded the opening address from speakers, noting the useful synergy between the work of UNEP FI and the Scorecard. UNEP FI has recently produced a similar report, that - instead of analysing green central banking policies country-by-country - used the lens of the Basel Committee ‘3 Pillar’ framework. She recognised the dual status of the APT region as “not just an economic powerhouse but also uniquely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss”, meaning central banks are tasked with a complex role of safeguarding financial stability and preparing financial systems for a just transition. She noted recent positive developments in APT countries, including many countries moving climate stress testing from the pilot stage to full implementation, and the addition of sustainability into several central bank mandates. Overall, the region has made the most tangible progress in Pillars 2 and 3. The challenges she raised that countries are currently facing are: capacity, the need for better modelling, better data, and better adaptation of models and scenarios to local contexts.

After the initial comments, there was a wide-ranging discussion steered by Chair Janice Lim, including audience questions. With regards to the lack of high-impact policies across the region, Dr Heru Rahadyan responded to some questions on the role of coal in Indonesia’s energy future, as the country still depends heavily on this energy source. He put forward that it should be the role of central banks to set criteria for maximum acceptable levels of carbon emissions in their taxonomies, rather than regulate on the outright acceptability of fuel sources, which should come from central governments. He also mentioned the role BI hopes Carbon Capture and Reduction Technologies can play in the transition and phase out of coal by 2060.

Aziz Durrani shared his insights on a question regarding how to combat the perceived risks for companies looking to invest in emerging markets in Asia. He referenced a recent paper on how central banks can approach novel risks that he wrote with Julia Bingler of the Council on Economic Policies, including how central banks can support and incentivise green lending through better rates. Dr Ma further emphasised the role for incentives, such as derisking facilities, as well as training of project owners to better develop bankable projects, and clear definitions of green activities by the regulator. Returning to her previous comments about taking both a ‘carrot’ and ‘stick’ approach, Siti Kholifatul Rizkiah added that ensuring followup on supervisory expectations, and laying out explicit consequences for lack of adherence to these were important steps to complement incentives.

As our Chair Janice Lim outlined in her coverage of the event for The Business Times, Dr Ma also emphasised the importance of binding taxonomies, when responding to a concern raised both in audience questions and in the report about reliance on the private sector leading developments. Laura Canas Da Costa added that, despite these critiques, voluntary measures had been helpful for encouraging innovation in the sustainable finance landscape, and can be part of a broader set of both voluntary and mandatory measures.

Our discussion ended with final comments from the panellists regarding the status of APT countries and their green central banking policies in light of global developments and political pushback against climate action. All the speakers gave reasons for optimism, and although Siti acknowledged there may be some negative impact from investor sentiment and reduced capital flows, she added that the region has built strong frameworks. Laura, Aziz and Dr Heru all noted that the need for this region to take action has never been more pressing, with the number of devastating climate events in the region only increasing. In his concluding thoughts, Dr Ma highlighted that newly installed renewable energy capacity in Asia is 70% of the global total, and so that despite the rolling back of climate commitments elsewhere, “this is where the action is, in Asia!”. Our Scorecard shows exactly that: progress in the region is promising, with plenty of work still to be done. 

You can read the full East and Southeast Asia Green Central Banking Scorecard here, as well as our press release for the report.