Switzerland has voted in favour of a new Energy strategy. The financial industry has a role to play in the stipulated change to the new energy system.

This was the conclusion of the President of the Swiss Confederation, Doris Leuthard, in her keynote speech at the Annual SSF Conference that took place last week in Bern. She pointed out the necessity to address sustainability challenges with determination but also outlined the resulting opportunities linked to new business and financing models. Christian Thimann, Chair of the High Level Expert Group on Sustainable Finance of the European Commission, made clear in his keynote that while Europe is quickly adapting the frameworks in favour of sustainable finance, he sees Switzerland in a good position to play an important role in supporting a sustainable financial system. He shared with the President the view that waiting is not an option, as illustrated by his quote: “Sustainability is not everything, but on the long-term without sustainability everything becomes nothing.”

Explore more about the various endeavours of different players to address sustainability in financial decisions in this newsletter.

Kind regards

Sabine Döbeli

CEO Swiss Sustainable Finance

SSF Activities

Regulatory and market news

SSF and sustainable finance in the media

New members joining SSF

Save these dates

New reports & studies

SSF held Members’ Assembly and Annual SSF Conference featuring keynote speeches by Doris Leuthard and Christian Thimannn

On 13 June 2017, SSF started the day by holding its annual Members’ Assembly, where Michael Baldinger (Head of Sustainable and Impact Investing, UBS) and Christine Schmid (Head Investment Solutions, Credit Suisse (Schweiz)) were elected as new members to the SSF board. SSF members were also informed about the SSF activities that took place during the last year, which are, among others, outlined in the SSF Annual Report 2016.

Christian Thimann, Chair of the European Commission’s High Level Expert Group on Sustainable Finance (HLEG), focused his speech on recent regulatory and market developments in sustainable finance in Europe and their role for the Swiss financial centre. In four expert interviews, SSF assessed the progress made towards a sustainable financial system over the last year based on results of a survey amongst its members. Also part of the event was a panel discussion on the important role of innovation for sustainable finance and how Switzerland can stay a driving force in this regard.

Read more and see pictures of the event.

SSF released event summary video to recap launch and feedback of publication

Swiss Sustainable Investment Market Report 2017 launched at the Geneva Forum for Sustainable Investment (GFSI)

SSF presents report “Proposals for a Roadmap – one year on”

Workshop on renewables at 7th New Energy Investor Summit

On 23 May 2017, at the 7th New Energy Investor Summit, Sabine Döbeli moderated the workshop “Asset Class Renewables: Attractive Investments for Institutional Investors” and discussed with four panellists and the audience why investments in renewables ideally complement existing asset classes and how they are currently represented in portfolios of institutional investors.

Moderation of FTSE Russel webinar on ESG indexing

Swiss news

• The State Secretariat for International Financial Matters (SIF) published its biannual figures on Switzerland as a location for financial services.
• The Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) offers all Swiss pension funds and insurance companies the opportunity to have their equity and corporate bonds voluntarily tested for climate-friendliness at no charge between April and mid June 2017.

International initiatives

• In April, the European Commission (EC) launched a consultation and organised a public hearing on the Capital Markets Union (CMU) mid-term review, where the Chair of the High Level Expert Group on Sustainable Finance (HLEG), Christian Thimann, gave a status update. The CMU is a key pillar of the EC's Investment Plan for Europe, the so-called Juncker Plan. In the beginning of June, the EC published the communication on the CMU mid-term review, wherein a strong focus is put on sustainable and green finance. Most notably, among the outlined nine new priority actions, a clear commitment is made to follow the recommendations of the HLEG.
• The Financial Stability Board (FSB) published a peer review on corporate governance, which offers 12 recommendations.
• The UN convened an initiative called the SDG Financing Lab to mobilize the resources needed to support the world’s long-term sustainable development objectives.
• The UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) held a webinar to present the strategy and work programme of its new Principles for Positive Impact Finance, where viewers learned about the range of options available to participate in the initiative.
• A new toolkit by the G20 Energy Efficiency Finance Task Group (EEFTG) has been launched that aims to act as a “collaborative architecture” for policy makers and investors to scale up energy efficiency investment in the G20 group of leading industrial nations. It includes insights and support from 122 banks globally, from institutional investors representing USD 4 trillion, and insurers who are signatories to UNEP FI’s Principles for Sustainable Insurance (PSI).

Market trends

• The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, and Amundi, a leading European Asset Manager, agreed to create the largest green-bond fund dedicated to emerging markets. The Green Cornerstone Bond Fund is a $2 billion initiative that aims to deepen local capital markets and expand financing for climate investments.
• The Luxembourg Green Exchange (LGX) is opening a segment dedicated to sustainable and social projects bonds, a sector valued at over $23 tn, as it looks to broaden the universe of socially responsible instruments listed on its platform.
• The Frankfurt stock exchange has launched a bid to become a hub for sustainable finance. In signing the “Frankfurt Declaration”, major financial players made a joint declaration of intent to define a framework for a sustainable financial sector and to put an array of initiatives in motion to achieve this in Frankfurt's financial centre.
• The PRI created a draft model for delisting signatories that fall short of wider market expectations around responsible investment. The move comes as the PRI outlines its nine priority areas over the next ten years in its new “Blueprint for responsible investment”.

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• 18 June 2017, Echo der Zeit, Nachhaltig investieren boomt
• 13 June 2017, NZZ, Pensionskasse des Bundes trifft radikalen Entscheid
• 13 June 2017, SRF, Grösste Schweizer Pensionskasse stösst Rüstungsfirmen ab
• 8 June 2017, The Beam, Sustainable finance to fight climate change
• 2 June 2017, Corriere del Ticino, Gli investimenti sostenibili prendono piede
• 2 June 2017, Fondstrends, Nachhaltige Anlagen wachsen in der Schweiz markant
• 2 June 2017, L’Agefi, Nouveaux relais de croissance
• 1 June 2017, NZZ, Verantwortungsvolle Versicherer
• 1 June 2017, Tribune de Genève, Genève peut être la Silicon Valley de la finance durable
• 31 May 2017, Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN), Magazin „umwelt“ 2/2017 – Geld bewegt, „Im nachhaltigen Investment steckt ein riesiges Potenzial“ (pp. 23-26)
• 18 May 2017, NZZ, Impact Investing: Wo Anleger rundum zufrieden sind
• 17 May 2017, SRF Rundschau, Nationalbank im Rüstungsgeschäft
• 14 May 2017, SonntagsBlick, Nachhaltige Finanzgeschäfte: So machen Sie Kohle mit der Energiestrategie!
• 12 May 2017, Finanz und Wirtschaft, Grüne Anlagen sind mehr als bloss ein Modetrend
• 28 April 2017, Finanz und Wirtschaft, Nachhaltig anlegen liegt im Trend
• 20 April 2017,SRF4 News, Kommentar Sabine Döbeli (CEO, SSF) zur Kritik an SNB

Visit our website for more articles and regular updates.

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We welcome the following organisations as new SSF members or network partners:

• 21 June 2017, Alternative Bank Schweiz (ABS) presents its new study „Genügend ist besser – Können ethische Geldanlagen suffizient sein?“, Olten
• 18 July 2017, Public hearing on sustainable finance, Brussels, Belgium
• 25-27 September 2017, PRI in Person 2017, Berlin, Germany
• 16-18 October 2017, Regional Roundtable on Sustainable Finance, Geneva
• 24-25 October 2017, World Resource Forum 2017, Geneva
• 23 November 2017, Sustainable Investments Day, Zug

Further events are listed on the SSF Website

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• 17 May 2017: The GIIN published its “Annual Impact Investor Survey 2017”, which is is based on an analysis of the activities of 209 of the world’s leading impact investing organizations. Survey respondents collectively manage nearly USD 114 billion in impact assets.
• 17 May 2017: The 6^th climate change report from Thomson Reuters and BSD Consulting, "Global 100 Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Performance, New Pathways for Growth and Leadership”, identifies the 100 biggest listed GHG emitters and finds that most of them have potential pathways to decarbonisation.
• 2 May 2017: The OECD issued the paper “Investment governance and the integration of environmental, social and governance factors”, which presents the findings of an international stocktaking of the regulatory frameworks that apply to institutional investment in different jurisdictions and how these frameworks are interpreted by institutional investors in terms of their ability or responsibility to integrate environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in their governance processes.
• 20 April 2017: The PRI and the UN Global Compact issued “Aligning Values: Why corporate pension plans should mirror their sponsors” – a call for CEOs to ensure their corporate pension plans adopt responsible investing policies – highlighting concrete benefits including improved investment performance, fulfilling fiduciary duty and managing regulatory risk and boosting corporate sponsor credibility.
• 19 April 2017: State Street Global Advisors announced the results of “Performing for the Future – ESG's place in investment portfolios. Today and tomorrow.” – a global survey of 475 institutions, which found that 68% of respondents believe that integration of an ESG strategy has significantly improved returns, showing that the adoption of ESG driven investment strategies has a future in institutional portfolios.
• 12 April 2017: The Investor Group on Climate Change (Australia/New Zealand) (IGCC) and the Asia Investor Group on Climate Change (AIGCC) launched “Transparency in Transition: A Guide to Investor Disclosure on Climate Change” – the first institutional investor-specific guidance released in the wake of the Financial Stability Board (FSB)’s Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) draft disclosure recommendations put out late last year.

Read these and other recent reports

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Best regards

The SSF team

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