Citigroup Inc has pledged US$250 billion to finance and facilitate climate solutions globally and reduce climate risk. The Environmental Finance Goal is part of the global bank’s new five-year 2025 Sustainable Progress Strategy to help accelerate a transition to a low-carbon economy. This builds on Citi’s previous US$100 billion goal announced in 2015 and completed last year, more than four years ahead of schedule.
“If there’s one lesson to be learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, it is that our economic and physical health and resilience, our environment and our social stability are inextricably linked,” Citi Asia Pacific CEO Peter Babej said in a statement.
“ESG [environmental, social and governance] has been front and center in Citi’s response to the health crisis, and evermore present in conversations with clients and communities across the Asia-Pacific. With the US$250 billion global goal, we want to be a leading bank in driving the transition to a low-carbon economy. The Asia-Pacific has a key role to play and we anticipate further acceleration in the region as businesses of all kinds shift to a more sustainable future,” Babej said.
Photo courtesy of Citibank
Citi has signaled its commitment to transitioning to a sustainable, low-carbon economy as the first US-based signatory of the UN Principles for Responsible Banking.
Citi released its 2019 Environmental, Social and Governance Report in April, detailing its performance across a number of priority ESG areas. Since the onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic, Citi has continued to deepen its ESG efforts in response to client and market demand. Citi and the Citi Foundation have thus far committed more than US$100 million to support virus-related community relief efforts around the world.
Citibank Taiwan Ltd (台灣花旗) chairman Paulus Mok (莫兆鴻) said: “In response to the group’s ESG policy, Citibank Taiwan is taking proactive measures during the pandemic to preserve the well-being of employees, serve clients and contribute to society, so as to maximize our positive impact as a responsible corporation.”
“This year, Citi Taiwan will continue to focus on ESG-related areas; further commit to environmental, social and governance efforts; and advance toward the sustainable progress goal. We will also issue our first certified ESG report,” Mok said.
Citi Taiwan has launched the Double the Good campaign, calling on all Citi Taiwan staff to show care and support for disadvantaged families, bereaved children and medical staff. Citi Taiwan would match every NT$1 that employees donate with NT$1.
To avoid large in-person gatherings, Citi Taiwan has adopted a different strategy this year by organizing multiple small-scale activities for the annual Global Community Day.
In appreciation for the hard work and contributions of Citi staff during the pandemic, Citi is offering a one-time compensation award, an extra day off and other benefits to support employees through this difficult time.
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
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