Biodiversity loss is one of the top three risks in the next 10 years and would seriously affect future generations’ access to essential resources, the World Economic Forum said in The Global Risks Report 2022 last month.
For a long time, CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控) has focused on promoting the positive influence of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
As four of the 17 are closely related to nature (SDG 6, SDG 13, SDG 14 and SDG 15), and protecting and supporting biodiversity is the foundation of realizing a sustainable society, CTBC Financial on Monday last week became the first Taiwanese company to join the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosure (TNFD), aiming to work with more than 250 members around the world to contribute cross-disciplinary expertise and experience, and to develop a reporting framework.
Photo: Lee Chin-hui, Taipei Times
The TNFD was in June last year launched by an informal working group comprising 75 members, including the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative, the UN Development Programme, the WWF, Global Canopy, Citi Group Inc, AXA SA, BNP Paribas SA, and other financial institutions, governments, think tanks and corporations.
Taking a cue from the successful experience of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), the TNFD’s mission is to develop a disclosure framework for companies to report and act on nature-related risks, thereby supporting global capital markets to create positive value for nature.
CTBC Financial signed on to the TCFD in 2020, using the initiative’s framework to assess climate risk management and governance, as well as to promote low-carbon transformation in Taiwan and the Asia-Pacific region.
The company expects to reach a wider range of natural and ecological issues through participation in the TNFD.
In accordance with the TNFD, the company aims to strengthen the disclosure of nature-related risks and countermeasures from five aspects: governance, strategy, risk management, metrics and targets.
In addition, CTBC Financial is to continue to discuss with customers and encourage them to take positive actions to prevent related businesses from having a negative impact on the natural environment and fulfill corporate responsibilities of protecting the natural ecology.
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
CHIP DUTIES: TSMC said it voiced its concerns to Washington about tariffs, telling the US commerce department that it wants ‘fair treatment’ to protect its competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reiterated robust business prospects for this year as strong artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from Nvidia Corp and other customers would absorb the impacts of US tariffs. “The impact of tariffs would be indirect, as the custom tax is the importers’ responsibility, not the exporters,” TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at the chipmaker’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hsinchu City. TSMC’s business could be affected if people become reluctant to buy electronics due to inflated prices, Wei said. In addition, the chipmaker has voiced its concern to the US Department of Commerce
STILL LOADED: Last year’s richest person, Quanta Computer Inc chairman Barry Lam, dropped to second place despite an 8 percent increase in his wealth to US$12.6 billion Staff writer, with CNA Daniel Tsai (蔡明忠) and Richard Tsai (蔡明興), the brothers who run Fubon Group (富邦集團), topped the Forbes list of Taiwan’s 50 richest people this year, released on Wednesday in New York. The magazine said that a stronger New Taiwan dollar pushed the combined wealth of Taiwan’s 50 richest people up 13 percent, from US$174 billion to US$197 billion, with 36 of the people on the list seeing their wealth increase. That came as Taiwan’s economy grew 4.6 percent last year, its fastest pace in three years, driven by the strong performance of the semiconductor industry, the magazine said. The Tsai