Greening the financial system is crucial and, fortunately, an irreversible trend. On Wednesday (3 November), during the UN Climate Conference, COP26, in Glasgow, there were a series of announcements that put important players in the financial sector on the path to sustainable development.
More than 30 financial institutions (including one Brazilian one) have recognized that combating deforestation is essential to achieving their climate neutrality goals and have committed to disclosing the climate risks of their businesses. This is yet another initiative that places forest conservation at the center of climate solutions, as is the case with the Pact for Forests, launched on Tuesday (November 2). And Brazil is the country that can benefit most from these initiatives in the short term.
A coalition of more than 450 banks, insurers and asset managers in 45 countries was also launched, promising to make available US$100 trillion by 2050 to finance actions that eliminate or neutralize greenhouse gas emissions. Brazilian institutions are part of the movement.
The Brazilian business sector sees these financial sector initiatives as very positive for steering global business towards sustainable development. It is important to finance clean projects instead of initiatives that emit greenhouse gases, but we still need scale and standardization. CEBDS is a member of the TCFD (Task Force for Climate-related Financial Disclosure) and, in recent years, has been training Brazilian companies to map and seek solutions for social, environmental and climate risks, both internally and for their customers.
“Financing increasingly needs to have the environmental, social and governance seal, that is, sustainability criteria, to be viable”, highlights the president of Brazilian Business Council for Sustainable Development (CEBDS), Marina Grossi. “Because if we have a goal of the entire world being climate neutral by 2050, we need to know how much money we need to get there. Initiatives range from new funding to redirecting existing resources for this purpose.”
On Finance Day at COP, the message was clear: it is high time to report environmental risks and direct resources towards the green economy.
