Amsterdam-headquartered ING bank announced on Friday (April 8) the appointment of Martijn Hoogerwerf as head of Sustainable Finance for Asia Pacific, effective March 24.
Reporting functionally to Ana Carolina Oliveira, global head of Sustainable Finance (ad interim) and regionally to Catherine Low, head of Lending and Transaction Services for APAC, Hoogerwerf remains at the bank’s Singapore base, which he joined in 2019.
Hoogerwerf offered FinanceAsia thoughts on the trends he is observing across the Asian ESG space, that are likely to play out across the remainder of 2022.
While very positive on the continuation of increased investor appetite as companies further embrace net zero targets and work to better define the impact of such on their corporate activities, Hoogerwerf shared some scepticism with regards to sustainability issuances.
“We anticipate another stellar year in sustainable finance issuance… However, while we expect huge growth, we also expect to continue to see a deterioration of the credibility of specifically the sustainability linked loan market with structures that hardly improve the sustainability standing of the borrower.”
Despite upward trending figures, persistent concerns around greenwashing pose a threat to the future development of green finance. One commonly cited contributor to this is the absence of universally-accepted standards for sustainability financing.
While commonalities and differences between regional taxonomies were identified at the COP26 conference last year through publication of the EU-China Common Ground Taxonomy, and other regional developments such the ASEAN Taxonomy for Sustainable Finance and efforts in the US by the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), have since surfaced, fragmentation across global markets remains.
But Hoogerwerf remains optimistic. “Achieving net zero is a target for the global economy and Asia will have to follow suit ultimately.”
“An increasing number of companies are already doing so [working towards net zero]; partially driven by the global supply chains that these companies are active in, local/regional regulations on standards and disclosures, and an increasing number of APAC investors taking ESG criteria into their investment processes.”
Another trend he pointed to is increased demand for transition finance in Asia, to help “brown industries” kickstart the shift to greener business activities.
While Hoogerwerf expects continued growth in the ‘traditional’ energy transition sectors to help with this shift, such as renewables and electric vehicles – as well as opportunities emerging across newer technologies such as hydrogen, he believes that steel and aluminium production pose formable opportunities for sustainable transformation, as does the shipping industry.
“The metals and mining sector is critical to underpin the energy transition and to meet increased demand for things such as batteries, electric vehicles, and renewable sources of energy. Yet the sector itself also has an important role in minimising its own emissions and impact on the environment.”
Beyond climate-related endeavours, Hoogerwerf highlighted how the social side of ESG transactions has emerged as the dominant theme in the past two years, in part, as reaction to the pandemic.
“Tools that mitigate social risks look attractive to investors who are now hyperaware of social issues, as unprecedented economic disruption and market volatility has emphasised the importance of mitigating social risks.”
He added that the market is beginning to better understand risks on the periphery of the ESG category: “The task force for ‘nature-related’ financial disclosure is developing a framework to allow market players to better understand nature-related financial risks.”
Hoogerwerf has over ten years of experience in the sustainable finance markets during which time he has served in a number of investment and advisory roles.
Prior to joining ING in 2019, he spent eight years at Fortis’ Transportation & Logistics and the Strategic Development teams (now merged with ABN Amro), where he worked to develop the firm’s wholesale banking activities in Asia. He moved to Asia in 2006, arriving in Hong Kong as part of his tenure with Fortis.
He confirmed that he will look to expand ING's Asia Pacific Sustainable Finance team in order to further enhance the product offering to clients and to assist them with their sustainability journeys.
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