From coal financing to green lending: OCBC’s chief sustainability officer Mike Ng on the just transition

MIKE Ng still remembers working through the contractual structure and complications of a deal involving the financing of a coal-fired power plant when it was first commissioned more than 10 years ago. 

That same coal-fired power plant is now among the first few in South-east Asia set to be decommissioned, amid a growing momentum to phase out the most pollutive type of power generation in a global race to address the climate crisis. 

“That’s when I realised I have probably been in the business for too long. It has actually come one full circle,” said Ng, OCBC Bank’s first chief sustainability officer (CSO). 

His career evolution has taken quite an unexpected turn, considering that he had…