The 19-year-old bank, a commercial bank headquartered in southeastern China's Fujian Province, won the award mainly for its utility-based Energy Efficiency Finance Program, aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the country.

The program, kicked off merely six months ago, has financed nine projects with a total loan of 17 million U.S. dollars, helping China reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than two million tons of CO2 and equivalent.

The bank's energy efficiency program, supported by International Financial Corporation, offers tailor-made financing tools to support industrial, commercial and residential entities implementing energy efficiency improvement projects and use of cleaner fuels and renewable energy.

"This is very encouraging for such a young bank like ours, and we will try harder to contribute our efforts for a greener and healthier world, which is also in the long-term interests of our development as a commercial bank," Zhu Liyong, general manager of the corporate banking department of the bank said.

The FT Sustainable Banking Awards, an annual event started last year, has five categories, namely, Achievement in Carbon Finance, Sustainable Deal of the Year, Sustainable Bankers of the Year, Emerging Markets Sustainable Bank of the Year and Sustainable Bank of the Year.

Raiffeisen Zentralbank, of Austria, came out as the winner of the Achievement in Carbon Finance; Compartamos, a Mexico-Citi joint venture pocketed the Sustainable Bankers of the Year; ABN. AMRO, an Indian bank turned out to be a double winner in that it won the Emerging Markets Sustainable Bank of the Year and the Sustainable Bank of the Year at the same time.

The sustainable awards was established jointly by the Financial Times and International Financial Corporation to encourage more banks to integrate environmental, social and corporate governance considerations into their business.

A total of 151 entries from 100 banks in 50 countries were sent to the judge panel for the awards, compared with 90 entries from 48 banks in 28 countries last year.

(For more biz stories, please visit Industry Updates)