Diego Fernando Hidalgo Oñate, student of the Master’s Degree in Cooperation for Development, has recently been awarded the II UJI Social Commitment Award – Santander Bank (call for entries 2020) in the End of Master’s Degree work category with the work entitled “Green bond issue as a financing strategy for climate change mitigation. Application of the Human-Centered Design methodology in the National Financial Corporation of Ecuador”.
The TFM, directed by Professor Iluminada Fuertes Fuertes, deploys the methodology of user-based participatory design (Human Centered Design) for the design of a green bond issue at the Corporación Financiera Nacional, Ecuador’s development bank.
In the context of climate change, the Academy has a great social responsibility, not only because it is the guardian of the intellectual heritage, but also because it can offer technical solutions. In this sense, the work presented raises social innovation in the financial sector, proposing access to a new source of financing for banks in developing countries, whose resources are intended to finance environmental projects aligned with sustainable development objectives.
The methodology followed in the final master’s work included in-depth interviews with semi-structured questions to a panel of experts in the inspiration phase; structuring of green credit lines and green bond issue features in the ideas phase; and setting out an issue roadmap for the execution phase. Among the main results was the issuance of green bonds as a new source of financing for banks. In addition, credit lines to finance eco-efficient machinery and sustainable construction, public policy linkage considerations and the prospects for issuing green bonds as a financing mechanism for climate change mitigation were analysed.
