LONDON Jan. 18 (People's Daily Online)—— Green Finance Initiative launched recently in the City of London, which aims to make London the world leader in green finance.

The Green Finance Initiative aims to improve the financing options for green infrastructure projects, enhance transparency and accreditation standards, and support the sector’s development.

The initiative is being launched by the City of London Corporation, who will use the City’s convening power and close relationship with industry to find practical ways to support the market. A similar initiative to support the development of London’s renminbi markets led to concrete successes such as a growth in trade volumes of 600% since 2011, a government issued RMB bond, and the sale of more than $1 billion dual currency green bonds in London by the Agricultural Bank of China by 2015. 

Industry experts gave advices to find out which issues they felt needed tackling most urgently. The first phase of the GFI will focus exclusively on three issues:

· Improving the flow of projects generating green bonds in the UK and advocating for the development of a low-carbon infrastructure strategy.

· Enhancing transparency and accreditation standards so that market participants can have greater confidence in green products.

· Better informing and incentivising the market, including through educational materials and assessing potential market incentives.

Members of the initiative will be drawn from banks, insurers, accountants, academics, regulators, and government. Sir Roger Gifford, a former Lord Mayor of the City of London and a director at SEB; Achim Steiner, Executive Director of UNEP; Ma Jun, Chief Economist of the People’s Bank of China; Nick Robins, Co-director of the UNEP Inquiry into the design of a sustainable financial system; and the Rt Honourable the Lord Mayor of the City of London, the Lord Mountevans, will all be speaking at the launch event, along with other industry figures.