MAS to cut down carbon footprint in equities portfolio by 50% by 2030

This is part of the regulatory body's promise to build a climate-resilient portfolio.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore plans to cut down emissions intensity of its equities portfolio by up to 50% by 2030, in a bid to create a more climate-resilient portfolio.

MAS said it plans to do this by implementing a portfolio overlay aimed at mitigating transition risk exposures in its equities portfolio.

The regulatory body also plans to stop investing in companies that derive more than 10% of their revenues from thermal coal mining and oil sands activities.

Encouraging e-gifting

As part of its 2030 environmental sustainability roadmap MAS aims to reduce carbon emissions of its outsourced currency operations by 10% in 2025 and 20% by 2030.

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MAS said that decreasing carbon emissions from their currency operations hinges most on lowering the public’s demand for notes and coins. With that, MAS said it plans to encourage the use of fit notes and e-gifting during festive seasons such as the Lunar New Year (LNY) which can see around 100 million new pieces of notes created annually.

“These new notes are used once for gifting, and the majority of these notes are returned to MAS shortly after each LNY. Whilst most of these returned notes are recirculated to meet demand, the excess will accumulate and are subsequently destroyed before the end of their useful life as they far exceed the replacement demand. This wastes resources, resulting in unwarranted carbon emissions,” MAS said.

MAS plans to shift public preferences by encouraging the use of fit notes during festive gifting and continuing with the progressive reduction of new notes to reduce the environmental impact of new notes issuance. MAS hopes that in the near future it will no longer issue new notes for festive gifting.