Google Cloud establishes point carbon zero program advisory board, aims to unlock funding, growth opportunities for climate fintech firms, startups | Press Releases | Asia

Today at Singapore FinTech Festival 2022, Google Cloud announced three important updates under the Point Carbon Zero program, which were jointly launched in July with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to catalyze the incubation and deployment of climate fintech solutions in Asia over the next three years.

These updates include the appointment of an advisory board to guide the Point Carbon Zero program’s strategy and ecosystem engagement initiatives; the launch of a Climate Finance Accelerator to provide climate fintech firms and startups with guidance and funding opportunities to scale market-ready solutions; and the introduction of several high-growth technology companies to Google Cloud to build their digital offerings using carbon-neutral cloud infrastructure and services.

Formation of an advisory board for the carbon zero programme

The Advisory Board consists of 12 senior executives from Chubb, DBS, Fidelity International, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, KPMG in Singapore, National University of Singapore (NUS), OCBC, Singapore FinTech Association (SFA), Standard Chartered Bank, UOB and XL Ventures.

By bringing together a diverse group of sustainability and finance experts from the private sector, public service, academia and civil society, the board reflects the integrated approach needed to facilitate reliable and efficient flows of environmental, social and governance (ESG) data ). , and design data-driven solutions and financial instruments that can advance organizations’ decarbonisation agenda.

The Advisory Board has played an integral role in improving the mechanics of the Point Carbon Zero Climate Finance Accelerator and will serve as the program’s executive sponsors, mentors and judges.

Climate finance accelerator is now open to climate fintech companies, startups

Organized by Google Cloud in collaboration with MAS and KPMG in Singapore, the opening Climate Finance Accelerator aims to channel capital towards companies with market-ready climate fintech solutions, and to facilitate financial institutions adopting these solutions to influence multinational companies (MNCs) and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMBs).

Climate fintech companies are invited to submit innovative solutions to solve problem statements created in collaboration with stakeholders from DBS, HSBC, OCBC Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, TDCX and UOB. These problem statements reflect the following real challenges faced by financial institutions:

• Identify and quantify synergies and trade-offs between the social and environmental aspects of ESG, so that organizations can more effectively access and use transition finance.
• Leverage retrospective and prospective datasets to help organizations create achievable, science-based transition pathways that can be assessed against codified taxonomies.
• Standardizing the calculation, verification and publication of carbon emissions data across industries to allow customers – especially those in hard-to-reduce sectors – to monitor and manage their funded emissions.
• Automating the resource-intensive process of collecting validated carbon emissions data from an MNC client and its suppliers, so that a relationship manager can make an effective and reliable assessment of how the client is doing against its net zero commitments.
• Integrating ESG impact analysis into employee performance metrics to drive actions that reduce carbon emissions across an organization and its supply chain.
• Enables relationship managers to provide SMEs with tailored financing solutions linked to their implementation of sustainable business practices.

All eligible applicants will be given the opportunity to avail cloud computing credits of up to US$100,000 – each year for two years – under the Google for Startups Cloud Program.

By January 2023, up to 15 finalists will be shortlisted and matched with problem statement owners for a six-week program where they will refine their solutions and receive guidance from the Advisory Board and Google Cloud technical subject matter experts.

Finalists will then present their market-ready solutions to the Advisory Board, problem statement owners, venture capital and asset management firms and Google Cloud’s technology ecosystem partners at a demo day hosted at the Google Singapore campus. The demo day will be followed up by industry engagement sessions between the finalists and the financial institutions at the newly launched ESG Impact Hub.

Climate fintech companies are encouraged to submit their applications for the Climate Finance Accelerator by 3 December 2022.

“No organization can solve a complex and ever-evolving challenge like climate change on its own. Collaboration and partnership are essential, whether it’s getting granular ESG data to understand issues unique to this region, or addressing problem statements about where and how sustainable finance can drive change,” said Dr Darian McBain, MAS’s Special Adviser on the Point Carbon Zero Programme.

“It is encouraging to see ecosystem players coming together to combine capabilities, resources and an innovative mindset to tackle the transition problem. Although we still have real challenges ahead, multi-stakeholder platforms like the Point Carbon Zero program are pushing us and Asia in the right direction for a more sustainable future.”

“It is encouraging that companies around the world, especially in Singapore, have increased their sustainability efforts. A greater push for a significant transition to a net zero economy will require businesses and financial institutions to collaborate in new ways to develop robust ecosystems capable of system-wide transformation, said Anton Ruddenklau, partner and global head of innovation, financial services, KPMG International.

“KPMG welcomes our role in the Project Point Carbon Zero programme, where we will help identify and scale the best climate fintechs to support this systemic change. Our collective goal is to position Singapore favorably as a digital financial hub with a strong stake and influence in sustainable development. This will reinforce the country’s financial services growth and hub reputation.”

Build and scale digital offerings on carbon-neutral cloud infrastructure

Technology firms that provide digital solutions to drive economic inclusion or sustainable development in various ways are also joining the Point Carbon Zero program to scale their offerings using Google Cloud’s carbon-neutral infrastructure and services.

By migrating critical IT workloads and applications to the industry’s cleanest cloudwill these firms inherit Google Cloud’s carbon neutrality and immediately improve their sustainability profiles. They include AgriG8an agri-fintech platform that connects institutional lenders with the underserved smallholder farming community; Capturean application that helps consumers track and reduce the carbon footprint associated with their daily lifestyle activities; Climate impact Xa global marketplace and exchange for high-quality environmental credits; Fando, a tokenization and decentralized finance (DeFi) platform and marketplace for content creators and communities to take an active part in the business decisions of sports and eSports brands; and ZA Techa global insurance company that enables traditional insurers and digital lifestyle platforms to offer affordable and accessible digital insurance solutions to consumers.

“Southeast Asia is one of the regions most exposed to the risks and consequences of climate change, and the digital economy is estimated to produce 20 million tonnes of carbon emissions by 2030, according to the latter e-Conomy SEA 2022 Report,” so Sherie Ng, Country Director, Singapore and Malaysia, Google Cloud, and Chair of the Point Carbon Zero Program Advisory Board.

“Through the Point Carbon Zero programme, we are making a concerted effort to direct capital flows towards sustainability projects in Asia and deliver digitization solutions that minimize – or reverse – this environmental impact. Digital transformation and decarbonisation can happen in tandem and on a large scale as congruent imperatives in every organisation.”

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