Where Business Meets Green Growth

Transition finance acts as a catalyst, enabling strategic business transformation and supporting decarbonisation across global supply chains and complex systems

- 

Rising heat, floods and food price shocks – these are not distant concerns, but the everyday realities of climate change confronting people globally. This is especially so in Asia, which has some of the most climate-vulnerable communities in the world.

The tension between delivering inclusive growth to improve people’s lives and protecting the environment to ensure future generations’ needs can be met is at the heart of Asia’s climate paradox. It is also why transition finance – aimed at enabling decarbonisation in high-emitting sectors – is gaining ground as an investment theme.

“Unlike green finance, which focuses on projects that are already climate-friendly, transition finance enables step-by-step change,” says Helge Muenkel, chief sustainability officer at DBS. “It supports the rewiring of systems, including those that aren’t green yet – but can become greener over time.”

Importantly, transition financing is a tool not just for decarbonisation, but for broader business transformation. And it also drives climate adaptation outcomes – helping businesses and communities build resilience as they transition, Muenkel added.