The research teams at CESG constantly generate new project ideas which are academically sound and impactful to the industry. The ideas described below reflect some initial thoughts from the research teams. CESG actively pursues these ideas aiming to converting them into formal projects eventually. Our goal is to share with the stakeholders and the public what we are planning.
Topic 1.
AI x ESG Reporting
1. Research Team
Prof. Louis Cheng, Director of Research Centre for ESG, HSUHK
Mr. Hauman Yeung, Director of Corporate Advisory, Ascent Partners
Dr. Wenli Huang, Associate Director (External Relations) of Research Centre for ESG, HSUHK
Dr. Pauline Wong, Assistant Professor of Accounting, HSUHK
Mr. Jason Chow, Manager, Ascent Partners
2. Brief Description
AI is moving quickly from proof-of-concept demos into everyday use in ESG report writing. But its usefulness doesn’t scale evenly across the work. This paper sorts ESG reporting and analysis tasks into three tiers: work that large language models (LLMs) and agentic AI tools can already handle with light spot-checking, work that benefits from real human-AI collaboration, and work that should stay entirely in human hands no matter how good the underlying model gets.
3. Current Status
Working on an industry report.
Topic 2.
From Green to Blue: Enhancing Hong Kong IFC’s role as a Blue Finance Centre through Blue Tourism
1. Research Team
Prof. Louis Cheng, Director of Research Centre for ESG, HSUHK
Dr. George Lam, BBS, JP, United Nations ESCAP Sustainable Business Network Finance Task Force
Dr. Elaine Shiu, Vice Chairman of Young DAB
2. Brief Description
As a global financial hub and harbor city, Hong Kong is well-positioned to translate its green technology and finance expertise into guiding the blue economy. Based on the rich foundation of green bond issues in Hong Kong and green finance initiatives from Mainland China, Hong Kong is well positioned to explore blue finance to deepen the climate change adaptation effort for the Asian region. In fact, Mainland China has underscored the significance of the blue economy and international cooperation in this regard within the 15th Five-Year Plan, naming Qingdao and Shenzhen as core cities for its development. Therefore it makes perfect sense for Hong Kong to take lead in the GBA to foster the blue finance function for China as one of the initiatives in the Five-Year Plan. In the longer term, Hong Kong’s shipping sector can drive the blue economy business model through the continuous development of hybrid and low-emission engine vessels. However, to begin the blue journey, we propose a more controllable sector: the tourism/hospitality sector to explore blue tourism (e.g., ecotourism, ocean conservation tourism).
3. Current Status
Read the concise summary here.