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South Africa’s Green Finance Taxonomy: A Roadmap for Sustainable Growth

Below is an excerpt from ISS-Corporate’s recently released article “South Africa’s Green Finance Taxonomy: A Roadmap for Sustainable Growth”.

The full article is available on ISS-Corporate’s resources page.

South Africa’s largest banks hold an estimated combined sustainable finance portfolio of nearly ZAR 700 billion (about US$ 44 billion), according to the Banking Association South Africa. Meanwhile, the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) tracked an annual average of ZAR 188.3 billion (about USD 11.8 billion) in climate finance flows for 2022–2023. However, meeting the country’s climate goals will require far more – around ZAR 499 billion (about USD 31 billion) annually, as outlined in South Africa’s second Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) submitted in October 2025, which details the mitigation and adaptation finance needed for 2031–2035. 

To facilitate this journey towards a sustainable economy, the National Treasury of the Republic of South Africa published the Green Finance Taxonomy (SAGFT) in March 2022.  

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Authored By

Sakshi Gharat, Sustainable Finance Research, ISS-Corporate
Masaki Kadowaki, Sustainable Finance Research, ISS-Corporate
Jason Yu, Sustainable Finance Research, ISS-Corporate

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