The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has launched a new hub to drive co-location and collaboration between environment, social, governance (ESG) fintech startups and solution providers, financial institutions and real economy stakeholders.
Fifteen ESG fintechs and organisations are already set up at the ESG Hub including Equilibrium AI, a provider of ESG management and reporting software, Japanese bank MUFG Bank and World Wide Generation (WWG), a sustainability assurance fintech company
Located at The Great Room in the Afro-Asia building in Singapore, the Hub will support industry-driven sustainability initiatives, such the Point Carbon Zero Programme. It will also help KPMG‘s ESG Business Foundry, a six-month accelerator programme specially designed for scaling ESG fintechs.
MAS will also continue to engage key stakeholders in building the Hub’s onsite community, and fostering partnerships to enhance financial sector access to high quality climate and sustainability data, to support more efficient deployment of capital towards green and sustainable projects.
The Hub aims to drive Singapore’s ESG ecosystem in three ways
Growing ESG fintechs
The Hub will facilitate the discovery, scaling and deployment of technology solutions to address ESG needs of corporates and financial institutions. This will focus on accurate measurement, reporting and verification of climate and sustainability data.
Anchoring ESG enablers
MAS will engage knowledge partners, financial institutions and investors to organise key ESG initiatives out of the Hub, such as ESG fintech accelerator programmes, training and capacity-building workshops, and thought leadership events.
Supporting ESG Stakeholders
MAS will engage the Hub community to deploy its programmes and solutions to drive material, quantifiable impacts that support sectoral transition efforts, with particular emphasis on the eight focus sectors identified by the Green Finance Industry Taskforce (GFIT).
Future plans
According to MAS, the establishment of the ESG Impact Hub is a critical milestone in Project Greenprint’s journey to build a vibrant and robust ESG ecosystem in Singapore, underpinned by technology and data.
“This physical Hub will augment MAS’ plans to launch a digital Greenprint Marketplace next year to catalyse the growth of the region’s online ESG community; and will serve as the launchpad for public-private partnerships that support Asia’s just and sustainable transition to a low carbon economy,” said Dr Darian McBain, chief sustainability officer, MAS.
While, Manjula Lee, CEO and founder of WWG, said: “WWG applauds MAS for helping to facilitate the bringing together of government, business and civil society to pool our talent and resources, working as one ecosystem and under one roof to accelerate the delivery and financing of a sustainable future.
“WWG were thrilled to be selected to power SGX’s ESGenome Disclosure Portal with the G17Eco platform, and are very excited to setup our ASEAN regional HQ in Singapore out of the Impact Hub. We look forward to
meeting and working with the other Impact Hub members very soon.”
