From October 20 to 22, along the banks of the Huangpu River in Shanghai, the 2026 Sustainable Global Leaders Conference returns once again. Nobel laureates and Turing Award winners will take the stage to discuss the future and trends of technology, and the internet-famous professors who "rescue" people from anxiety and the era of involution—Michael Sandel and Xiang Biao—will engage in an on-site dialogue!
Limited seats available, first come first served. Let us embark together on this journey of sustainability! [Click to register] Recently, the 2026 Huaxia ESG Management System Conference announced the shortlist for the "2026 Sustainable Development Value-Driven Enterprise Cases," and China Minsheng Banking Corp.,Ltd. (ASX: 600016) was successfully selected for its systematic, tool-based, and verifiable ESG management practices. This not only confirms the original mission of "serving the public and caring for people's livelihood" that MINSHENG BANK has upheld throughout its thirtieth year, but also reflects the underlying logic of China's banking industry in seeking symbiosis between commercial value and social value.
As the first national joint-stock commercial bank in China initiated and established by private enterprises, MINSHENG BANK has grown its total assets to over 7.7 trillion yuan since its establishment in 1996, with more than 2,300 branches and over 60,000 employees. What is even more noteworthy to the industry is that the bank has received MSCI ESG rating of AAA—the highest global rating—for three consecutive years from 2024 to 2026, and was included in the S&P Global Sustainability Yearbook (China Edition) 2026. It has also been recognized for multiple consecutive years by the China Association for Public Companies as a "Best Practice Case for Sustainable Development of Listed Companies" and "Best Practice Case for Board of Directors."
Mechanisms and Tools: Embedding ESG into the Entire Business Chain
ESG management involves a myriad of complexities. As one of the first banks in China to receive MSCI ESG's highest global AAA rating, MINSHENG BANK seized upon two key pillars early on: governance institutionalization and management toolization. The former addresses the question of "who manages ESG and how to advance it," while the latter answers "how to quantify it and how to implement it." These two foundations support each other and constitute the bedrock of the bank's ESG practice.
MINSHENG BANK elevated ESG to the board strategy level at an early stage, building a three-tier governance structure of "board decision-making—management promotion—dedicated department execution." The Board's Strategy Development and Consumer Rights Protection Committee, Risk Management Committee, and others focus respectively on ESG strategy and risk. At the execution level, the bank not only established an ESG working group under the head office's general office, but also set up multiple specialized committees for key issues such as green finance, inclusive finance, and consumer rights protection. This design ensures that ESG issues have a "seat" in decision-making and a "handle" in execution.
In practice, the greatest challenge is breaking down departmental barriers so that ESG can effectively penetrate from head office strategy to all business lines and branches nationwide. MINSHENG BANK's solution is "planning guidance plus assessment linkage": the chairman and president serve as the head and deputy head of the ESG leading group, incorporating key ESG indicators such as green credit and consumer rights protection into the performance assessments of institutions and executives, directly linked with compensation incentives, thereby transmitting ESG pressure and motivation to the grassroots level.
At the banking business level, the biggest difficulty in ESG management is how to quantify ESG risks—especially environmental and social risks—and embed them into traditional credit processes. MINSHENG BANK did not stop at qualitative principles but independently developed an ESG risk rating system containing five major categories and 25 models, covering corporate and small micro legal entity customers, and conducted subdivided modeling for high-carbon industries. The bank quantifies customers' ESG performance into 10 risk levels from A+ to D. For customers with high ESG risk levels, risk escalation management is applied, and medium-to-long-term credit such as fixed asset loans must be centralized to the head office for review and approval. Through continuous data governance, systematic training, and ESG review, this has gradually become routine. In 2025, MINSHENG BANK rejected multiple high-risk credit applications in "two high and one surplus" industries, proving the practical value of the tool in avoiding potential environmental and social risks.
At the business level, MINSHENG BANK has made green finance a strategic priority, building the "Minsheng Fenghe" green finance product system, focusing on industries such as clean energy and green transportation. In 2025, the green loan balance reached 358.2 billion yuan, a growth rate of 20.29%, higher than the bank's average loan growth rate, with the green loan proportion rising to 8.09%. The bank innovatively launched biodiversity protection indicator-linked syndicated loans, carbon footprint-linked loans, CCER pledge financing, and other products, implemented the nation's first batch of personal carbon inclusive emission reduction offset loan interest models, issued 10 billion yuan in green financial bonds, and achieved green loan energy savings and emission reductions equivalent to 16.45 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. MINSHENG BANK has continuously participated in and won awards at the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Green Finance Skills Competition, and its green finance practice was selected as a "2025 Banking ESG Typical Practice Case."
On its own operational side, the bank purchased 21,000 megawatt-hours of green electricity, reducing carbon emissions by approximately 17,600 tons. Relying on the "iMinsheng" platform, it held 585,000 online meetings throughout the year, compressing its operational carbon footprint through digital means.
Value and Responsibility: Making Sustainability the Business Model Itself
Practicing ESG, especially in inclusive finance, often faces the challenge of "high cost, high risk, low return." MINSHENG BANK's solution is a "technology empowerment plus ecosystem cooperation" model, controlling risk and cost while expanding service coverage. For example, to address the financing difficulties of small and micro enterprises, MINSHENG BANK not only launched online, data-driven credit loan products such as "Minsheng Hui," but also innovatively introduced the "Honeycomb Plan," providing batch credit around specific scenarios such as core enterprises, industrial parks, and agricultural wholesale markets. By replacing single collateral with scenario data, it reduces due diligence costs while mitigating risks through industrial synergy effects.
In the dimension of social responsibility, MINSHENG BANK has provided a sample with greater depth. The bank has paired up to assist Hua County and Fengqiu County in Henan Province for 24 consecutive years, with cumulative donations of 320 million yuan and loans exceeding 1.5 billion yuan, and has received the highest central unit designated assistance assessment rating of "Good" for six consecutive years. But more noteworthy than the numbers is the model—MINSHENG BANK goes beyond simple donations, creating the "Bai Mei Village" homestay project, partnering with e-commerce platforms to build the "Huazhou You Nong" regional public brand, cultivating local "blood-making" capacity through industrial empowerment, and attracting local university students to return home for employment. The bank also launched a series of rural revitalization specialty products, striving to build a "dual-wheel drive" assistance model featuring financial main business specialty assistance and comprehensive assistance in five major revitalization areas, blazing a distinctive path of financial services for rural development.
In addition, the "I Decide the Power of Minsheng Love—ME Public Welfare Innovation Funding Program," implemented for 11 consecutive years, has cumulatively donated 127 million yuan, supported 275 innovative public welfare projects, and benefited 417,900 people. It has treated 1,391 children with congenital heart disease over 13 consecutive years, sponsored 1,770 Xinjiang students over 16 consecutive years, and supported the Chinese Red Ribbon Foundation's AIDS prevention and treatment public welfare cause for 18 consecutive years. In 2025, the bank's external donations benefited more than 2.65 million people.
Care for employees is also put into practice. MINSHENG BANK actively builds a "dual-channel" development mechanism for professional and managerial tracks. In 2025, the bank had over 60,000 active employees, with a training coverage rate of 99.29%, per capita training of 56.65 hours, and an employee turnover rate of only 3.33%, far below the industry average. It established the "Minsheng Heartfelt Words" employee feedback platform, with a problem and appeal resolution rate of 93.91%, implemented the "Bamboo Sea Plan" employee care project, launched 7×24-hour EAP psychological counseling services, and upgraded the "Union+" platform covering the entire system, comprehensively safeguarding employee rights.
From the top-level design of governance mechanisms to the tool-based implementation of ESG rating models; from commercial innovation in green finance to the persistent efforts of designated assistance, MINSHENG BANK's ESG practice vividly reveals a simple yet profound truth: sustainable development is by no means a "moral optional question" added to the cost side, but rather a core competitiveness that simultaneously nurtures social value, business opportunities, and risk management capabilities through refined model design. As the bank stated in its ESG practice experience summary, the key to avoiding the "two skins" problem in ESG management lies in governance institutionalization, management toolization, and goal synergy. This answer sheet, shortlisted for the "2026 Sustainable Development Value-Driven Enterprise Cases," may well serve as a beneficial demonstration of how Chinese enterprises can transform ESG from "report language" into "business language."
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