Speaking at the recent Economist Impact Sustainability Week Asia conference held in Bangkok, SMU Associate Professor of Finance and Co-Director of Singapore Green Finance Centre Hao Liang noted that while there has been much debate about green finance, transition finance is more relevant to South-east Asia given that many economies have yet to fully adopt clean energy and wean themselves off fossil fuels. He added that the idea of transition finance is to align green goals to profit, given that no company will embark on this journey at the expense of profitability and commercial viability. Assoc Prof Liang also said that while much needs to be done to convince critics who argue that transition finance basically amounts to greenwashing, governments have to provide guidelines and taxonomy to verify the process as this aspect is missing in less developed economies
