Shifting from a Volume to a Value Driven Economy
Sustainable finance and investment will play a key role in fulfilling the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
High-level speakers from different stakeholders categories gathered for the morning plenary session “Sustainable Finance for Business Transformation” and discussed how to leverage finance to shift from a volume to a value driven Economy.
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Sustainable finance and investment will play a key role in fulfilling the UN Sustainable Development Goals. At the European SDG Summit 2020, organized by CSR Europe, high-level speakers from different stakeholders categories gathered for the morning plenary session “Sustainable Finance for Business Transformation” and discussed how to leverage finance to shift from a volume to a value driven Economy. From this dialogue emerged that:
There is a need for a radical change in the management and for the inclusion of sustainability at the core of companies’ business models
Alignment between public and private is needed to ensure an inclusive and fair transition to a low-carbon economy
Companies needs to find better ways to measure their impact and disclose such information to their investors (e.g. through measuring value-creation)
Banks and investors need clear targets and more accountability on sustainability-related issues
Strengthening the relations between companies and banks/investors would give the chance to deepen awareness on sustainability and reach scale
The session was opened by Paolo Gentiloni, European Commissioner for the Economy, who shared with the audience the state of the arts on the EU’s recovery plan from the current COVID-19 crisis, linking it up with the ongoing delivery of the Green Deal, Sustainable Finance and the EU Semester Package (including the SDGs). “ A strong and balanced recovery depends on a swift entry into force of Next Generation EU: to rebuild confidence, relaunch investment, and push ahead with transformative reforms to preserve our planet, build fairer societies and make a success of digitalization” said Gentiloni.
Hans Daems, Chair of the CSR Europe’s Board, highlighted the role of sector and cross-sector collaboration to scale up the impact of sustainable finance. On the other hand, Sirpa Pietikainen, Member of the European Parliament and Rapporteur in the EU Parliament on the Taxonomy dossier, and Hakan Lucius, Head of Corporate Responsibility and Stakeholders Engagement at the European Investment Bank, underlined the active role played by both institutions in supporting companies and finance actors in investing in sustainable activities. Panel discussions of practitioners from companies and the financial sectors shared their views and experiences in engaging on this agenda both internally and externally. Stakeholders from civil society underlined the need to accelerate finance through different sets of tools and engagement with different stakeholders’ families like companies, policy makers, and academia.
The plenary session “Sustainable Finance for Business Transformation” was part of the pillar “Sustainable Markets and Finance” of the SDG Summit 2020 and stems from CSR Europe’s community of practice on Total Impact Disclosure. Click here to access for free the recording of this webinar, or here if you wish to explore the recordings of other sessions focused on sustainable finance.
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