BNP Paribas Sustainable Finance Challenge Hong Kong 2025: Accelerating Innovation in Sustainable Finance
THE CHALLENGE IN A FEW WORDS
At BNP Paribas, we are convinced that collaboration and diversity are key enablers of innovation.
The purpose of this challenge is to bring together your ideas and BNP Paribas’ sector expertise to create a positive impact. As the bank for a changing world, BNP Paribas understands that the impact of climate change and shifts in social and consumer expectations are transforming businesses. This is happening at an unprecedented speed, making it necessary to accelerate innovation in sustainable finance.
In this context, this challenge is an opportunity for you to solve, with the guidance and support of BNP Paribas senior mentors, a concrete issue for the bank in the sustainable finance field.
This is a unique chance to better understand how a leading international financial institution works and to make a difference.
WHY COMPETE ?
But also..
- Solve a real problem by designing a practical solution and get the chance to see your project implemented
- Benefit from the mentorship from seasoned bankers and expand your professional network
- Differentiate your resume highlighting your sustainable finance innovation
LATEST UPDATES
Feel free to refer to the replay of our kick-off webinar below for details on the Challenge, problem statements and more. Don’t forget to register by February 21 (Friday).
If you have any questions, email us at sf.challenge.hk@asia.bnpparibas.com.
Download the webinar slides:
BNP Paribas Sustainable Finance Challenge Hong Kong 2025 Webinar
JOINING THE CHALLENGE
This challenge invites all undergraduate students of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), City University of Hong Kong (CityU), the University of Hong Kong (HKU), and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) from any academic programme to design a solution related to a specific issue on sustainability faced by the bank. Each team should consist of 3-5 students from the same university but can be enrolled in different academic programmes.
You can refer to these resources for more details:
Flyer: Sustainable Finance Challenge Overview
FAQ
Registration Form
WATCH A RECAP OF SUSTAINABLE FINANCE UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE SINGAPORE IN 2023
TIMELINE
CHOOSE YOUR PROBLEM STATEMENT
The problem statements below are carefully selected by our panel of seasoned bankers and sustainability experts. These are real issues faced in sustainable finance faced by banks and the wider financial sector.
When registering your team for the challenge, please specify which problem statement you will work on.
Sustainable Investment
A. How can we construct a global equity portfolio that has good risk-adjusted return, while incorporating sustainability themes & industry/company level sustainability information?
B. As the NextGen becomes increasingly ESG-aware, how can financial institutions like BNP Paribas cater to their interest and needs and design innovative sustainable products tailored to younger investors?
C. By opposition to listed companies, private companies remain mostly off the radar. Generally uncovered by regulations, very little information is available regarding their environmental and social performance. Critics argue that private companies and projects are an opaque refuge for carbon-intensive assets and unsustainable activities. However, from clean tech to green building and renewable infrastructure, their role is vital for the transition of our society. Besides the private sector represents a major part of our economies. How can we fill this information gap? How can we support private capital investors in their sustainable investments?
Energy Transition
D. Since Hong Kong Exchange (HKEx) introducing its Core-Climate Platform back in 2022, what do you recommend HKEx or the city to invest further in order to step up in the green utility and carbon exchange system?
E. We are expecting a massive first wave of EV power battery retirement, what role could BNP Paribas play for the purpose of achieving a feasible, responsible, controllable, and scalable solution for EV battery retirement?
Green Circular Economy
F. Hong Kong’s municipal solid waste charging (MSW charging) scheme failed to launch in 2024 and the Government will assess the readiness of society and the implementation of the measures, with a view to reporting work progress to the Legislative Council towards mid-2025. In your view, what are the critical measures to be taken to address Hong Kong’s waste management? How banks like BNP Paribas can play a proactive role to engage with companies in Hong Kong to achieve a green circular economy?
Sustainable Tech and Finance
G. The world is increasingly more digitalised. While society as a whole benefits from the convenience and efficiency of technologies offer, it comes at a high cost to the environment. Cloud computing, data centres and AI are energy intensive; production, consumption and disposal of digital infrastructure or equipment are resource intensive. With Hong Kong pledging to step up its efforts to attract high tech sectors, how can we balance this growth plan with Hong Kong’s carbon neutrality 2050 goal? How can finance or investment support this important sector?
Sustainable Supply Chain
H. How to position Hong Kong as the world’s leading green sourcing hub for Multi-National Companies (MNCs) aiming to ensure regulatory compliance (notably European such as CSRD, CS3D and EUDR) and environmental / social performance in their supply chain? Key sectors include textile and retail/consumer goods. It may range from policy, regional cooperation, ESG supply chain standards setting, financial incentives for MNCs corporates, inclusive supply chain financing for Asian SME and technology innovation.
Low Carbon Construction
I. Given the substantial premium for low carbon construction materials, how can the financial sector and bank like BNP Paribas help to accelerate their development (green steel, low carbon concrete…) to support Hong Kong’s green building agenda? Taking a value chain approach, the solutions may range for industry coalition participation, financial product innovation, policy and standard settings/certifications recognition for sustainable finance and data sharing platform across actors that would help to share the costs, the risks and the benefits.
More details on each problem statement will be share during the kick-off webinar. We will ensure that all of these problems are clear to you so that you can progress in the right direction. A replay of the kick-off will also be available to those who could not join us.
DELIVERABLES & JUDGING CRITERIA
What is required for Phase 1
For the qualification phase, we are looking for a short slide deck in PDF format. You can also include research materials such as excel tables. The document should outline how your solution can help to solve the problem statement.
We want to give you free space to describe your solution in your way. However, we do expect your slide deck to include the following elements:
- Description of the solution
- Analysis of the proposition (e.g SWOT analysis)
- Resources needed to develop the solution (cost, stakeholders involved, timeline of implementation, etc.)
What is required for Phase 2
For the final phase, the finalist teams will be invited to present your proposal in form of a pitch presentation (with supporting material). Finalists will be supported by their mentor to present a high quality pitch to the jury.
Judging criteria
Your proposition will be evaluated on the following criteria:
- Creativity and innovation
- Relevance of the solution relative to the problem statement
- Impact
- Feasibility
- Overall quality of the presentation
THE JURY
The finalists will be invited to present their solution to a panel of jury from BNP Paribas management.
Hugo Leung, Chief Executive Officer Hong Kong, Chief Executive Officer of BNP Paribas Securities (Asia) Limited
Hugo Leung is the Chief Executive Officer for Hong Kong, BNP Paribas and CEO of BNP Paribas Securities (Asia) Limited. He oversees the full breadth of the bank’s integrated and diversified offering in Hong Kong, encompassing all corporate and institutional banking activities.
As its CEO, Hugo is responsible for the overall management of the legal entity of BNP Paribas Securities Asia, supervising its activities. Prior to his current role, he oversaw Global Markets activities in Hong Kong including fixed income, equities and commodity derivatives business.
Hugo has extensive financial services experience and held various roles since joining BNP Paribas in 1993. He has a B.A. degree in Economics from Simon Fraser University in Canada.
Hugo was appointed as Independent Non-Executive Director for Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEx) in April 2017, where he serves on the Audit Committee, Board Executive Committee, Investment Committee, Board Risk Committee, Risk Management Committee (Statutory) and Listing Operation Governance Committee.
In April 2022, Hugo began serving as Non-Executive Director of OTC Clearing Hong Kong Limited and subsequently elected as Board Chairman and Chairman of the Risk Management Committee a year later. He was also appointed as Non-Executive Director of LME Clear Limited in July 2024.
Krishnan Venkatesh, Head of Corporate Clients Group APAC, BNP Paribas
Krishnan Venkatesh joined BNP Paribas in 2014 and has held multiple management positions over the past 11 years. He is currently based out of Hong Kong and oversees the Corporate Coverage franchise and the Global Sectors & Advisory roadmap in APAC.
He has 28 years of work experience with 25 years in Corporate Banking spread across multiple locations and across various product sales, local corporate coverage and multi-national corporate coverage roles. Prior to joining BNP Paribas, he worked for about 14 years with Citi where among other roles, he was also Senior Banker covering clients in Consumer, TMT and Industrial Segments.
Rosalia Kwong, Head of Human Resources Hong Kong, BNP Paribas
Rosalia joined BNP Paribas in 2019 as Head of Human Resources Hong Kong, with direct responsibility for all business, coverage and functions lines. With over 25 years of HR experience in the banking industry, she leads the Hong Kong HR team in delivering solutions-based HR services and advisory in accordance with local regulatory and statutory requirements, as well as implementing local and regional HR initiatives in Hong Kong.
As the person-in-charge of the Hong Kong HR platform, Rosalia collaborates with the HR Centres of Expertise to provide support to the Head of Territory and Territory Management in executing transversal strategic initiatives relating to their specific people agenda.
Prior to joining BNP Paribas, Rosalia held several leading HR positions in OCBC, Societe Generale, DBS and Standard Chartered Bank, all of which were based in Hong Kong.