Initiative 1: Sustainable Capital Markets
The Authority has taken the lead in developing a comprehensive roadmap to advance and promote sustainable and green capital markets in the United Arab Emirates. This aims to support sustainable projects by providing necessary funding channels through capital markets and includes:
- Enhancing sustainability in financial markets by working on the mandatory publication of sustainability reports for all public joint stock companies, which has been included as a requirement in the governance guide. Currently, all companies are required to disclose their sustainability reports annually, adhering to global standards, and publish them on the financial market website where their shares are listed.
Initiative 2:
In line with the UAE's Year of Sustainability Declaration and as part of the shared vision and efforts between regulatory bodies to enhance sustainability-related disclosure requirements for financial institutions in the country according to best global practices, the Authority has launched, in collaboration with the UAE Sustainable Finance Working Group, a set of principles, which include:
- Principles for sustainability-related disclosure for reporting entities
- Principles for effective management of climate-related financial risks
Initiative 3:
The Authority has exempted companies wishing to list their green or sustainability-linked bonds or sukuk on one of the local markets from registration fees for the years 2023 and 2024. This initiative aims to encourage companies to issue green bonds and sukuk to finance environmentally and climate-related sustainable projects and encourages both investors and companies to adopt eco-friendly investment opportunities.
Initiative 4:
The Securities and Commodities Authority has issued a decision regulating green and sustainability-linked bonds and sukuk. The decision mandates that, in the case of "green" bonds or sukuk, the issuer is required to allocate the entire proceeds from the subscription to environmentally friendly green projects that achieve objectives such as climate change adaptation, transitioning to a circular economy, pollution prevention or reduction, biodiversity conservation, energy efficiency, and environmentally sustainable management of natural living resources and land use.