17 August 2018

Dublin chosen to promote sustainable finance in Europe

Dublin has been selected as the European hub of the Financial Centres for Sustainability (FC4S) network.

The network was launched in September 2017 with the aim of sharing experience and taking common action to accelerate the expansion of green and sustainable finance. It is a partnership between various cities and the UN Environment Programme, which acts as its secretariat.

Its 18 current members include: Casablanca, Dublin, Frankfurt, Geneva, Hong Kong, London, Luxembourg, Milan, Paris, Seoul, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Stockholm, Toronto and Zurich.

The Dublin hub will be supported by a three-year investment of €1.5 million ($1.7 million) from the EU’s EIT Climate-KIC initiative, a public-private partnership working to accelerate the transition to a ‘zero-carbon’ economy. It will endeavour to mobilise action across more than 30 financial centres of Europe to:

  • develop a common European assessment tool for evaluating the climate/sustainability credentials of financial centres against their peers;
  • create a collaborative mechanism for agreeing development plans and priorities with individual centres to embed the agenda;
  • raise awareness, understanding and capability on sustainable finance;
  • build an open innovation platform to test and transfer new sustainable finance initiatives;
  • put together a framework to ensure dissemination of best practice; and
  • partner with municipal and regional authorities to connect financial centre action with real economy needs.

Stephen Nolan, CEO of Sustainable Nation Ireland, has been appointed as a strategic advisor to the global network and will co-ordinate the European hub.

“The expansion of green and sustainable financial services will need to be accelerated across banking, capital markets, insurance and investment in order to fully meet the needs of the Paris climate agreement,” he said.

The European Commission estimates that Europe will need €177 billion in additional yearly investment between 2021 and 2030 to keep the increase in average global temperatures to well below 2oC, as agreed in Paris.

FC4S Europe will be officially launched at EIT Climate-KIC’s annual Climate Innovation Summit in Dublin on 6-8 November. Environmental Finance is delighted to be the media partner for this event.