Research On Environmental Risk And ESG Assessment Of "Belt And Road" Coal Power Investment Projects

Under the background of "Belt and Road" construction and the difficulties faced by domestic coal power development,more and more Chinese power enterprises began to see the overseas power development opportunities and participated in the construction of a lot of coal power projects in the "Belt and Road" countries.However,with the global attention to climate change,most countries have begun the process of low-carbon energy transformation.The behavior of power enterprises to invest coal power projects in "Belt and Road" countries has attracted more and more attention from the international community,which is considered to be contrary to the current climate change goals.Therefore,power enterprises shuould pay attention to the impact of external environment changes on the project economy and the social risks faced in the whole process of projects.Based on this,this paper builds a integrated risk assessment model for overseas coal power investment projects,to evaluate the environmental risk and social risk respectively.On the one hand,based on the environmental stress test model,the impacts of multiple environmental risks(such as natural resources,financial policies,environmental protection,climate change and renewable energy development)on the economic benefits of the project are analyzed,and the environmental risk tolerance of the project is evaluated.On the other hand,the ESG(Environment,Social and Governance)performance of project is analyzed by the triangular fuzzy hierarchy analysis method and fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method,and then the social risk is rated.Then,this paper selects Indonesia,Vietnam and Pakistan as three typical countries for case analysis.Based on the average development level of coal power projects in three countries,the change values of return per kilowatt hour and internal rate of return of investment projects under the change of environmental risk are calculated.Taking the typical coal and power investment projects in operation in three countries as examples,the social risk level of the projects is evaluated.The results show that,(1)Chinese power enterprises can get good economic benefits by investing in coal power projects in Indonesia,Vietnam and Pakistan.However,under the circumstance of single environmental pressure,the economy of coal power project will be affected to some extent,and the project will be in deficit under the coexistence of multiple pressures.(2)Based on ESG evaluation of Shenhua Nansu Power Plant,Vietnam Yongxin coal fired power plant and Sasiwal Coal-fired Power Plant,it is found that It is found that China’s electric power enterprises pay more attention to environmental performance and social performance than governance performance,and there are certain differences among different enterprises.Overall,the social risk level of these projects is at a low level,which is worthy of reference for other projects.(3)Environmental stress testing and ESG analysis can help power enterprises effectively deal with environmental risks and social risks,and then improve the economic and social benefits of enterprises.Based on this,this paper puts forward the corresponding policy suggestions to the electric power enterprises,financial institutions and the government,to help the power enterprises effectively manage risks,establish a good corporate image,and realize the win-win cooperation between China and the "Belt and Road" countries.